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≡ GYMNASTICS ≡
USA Gymnastics issued this statement by electronic mail at 5:46 p.m. Eastern time Monday:
“USA Gymnastics supports the appeal submitted today by Jordan Chiles at the Swiss Federal Tribunal as we made a collective, strategic decision to have Jordan lead the initial filing.
“USAG is closely coordinating with Jordan and her legal team and will make supportive filings with the court in the continued pursuit of justice for Jordan.”
This procedure is fairly unusual, as national federations and/or National Olympic Committees are often involved in these filings, but not unheard of.
Chiles, a member of the U.S. women’s gold-medal team in Paris, qualified for the Floor Exercise final and was the last athlete to compete in the finals on 5 August. She scored 13.666, placing her fifth overall behind Romanians Ana Barbosu (13.700) and Sabrina Maneca Voinea (13.700).
However, the U.S. coaches asked for an inquiry, claiming that Chiles’ score was understated by 0.10 due to the wrong degree of difficulty had been entered for her routine. This was granted and elevated Chiles to the bronze medal at 13.766, and she received the bronze on the victory stand.
The Romanian gymnastics federation appealed the change to Chiles’ score with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Paris, which heard the case on 10 August and announced a decision that day that the inquiry made was four seconds past the one-minute limit, based on the available input data, which was admittedly incomplete.
Barbosu was then awarded third place by the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique that day and she was awarded the bronze medal on 16 August in a ceremony in Bucharest.
The Swiss Federal Tribunal is the only appeal option available for Court of Arbitration for Sport decisions and only on very limited grounds explained here. However, one of those grounds concerns errors in procedure that have limited an appellant’s right to be heard.
A lack of notice to USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee caused their participation in the Court of Arbitration to be arranged hastily, and after the hearing, evidence was found that would have confirmed the inquiry by the U.S. to have been made within the one-minute limit.
But the ruling had already been made.
Now, the Swiss Federal Tribunal can dismiss the case, or could remand it for a new hearing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport; it is not likely to make any decision on the merits of the case.
At the same time, the Romanian federation is still pursuing a re-scoring of Maneca Voinea’s score of 13.700, saying that video evidence shows that she did not step out of bounds, incurring a 0.10 deduction; if not, she would have been third at 13.800.
The Romanian federation has also asked for all three athletes to be awarded the bronze medal as a show of sportsmanship. That action can only be taken by the International Olympic Committee.
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