Jordan Chiles and two Romanian gymnasts are eligible for bronze medals if the arbitration panel had the authority to grant them. The panel indicated that a lot of unnecessary distress could have been avoided if there had been a method to confirm during the event whether a scoring appeal was submitted punctually.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport’s ad-hoc panel emphasized the need for the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) to establish a process to prevent similar incidents in the future, following Chiles’ disqualification from her bronze medal in the floor exercise at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“Had the Panel been able to apply fair principles, they undoubtedly would have awarded bronze medals to all three gymnasts, considering their performances and the distress and injustice they endured,” stated the full decision released on Wednesday.

“The Panel hopes that the FIG will take this case into account for these outstanding athletes and others in the future to prevent similar occurrences.”

Romania made a request for bronze medals for Chiles, Ana Barbosu, and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea. However, the CAS panel noted that fulfilling this request would require FIG’s consent, which was not given.

“The Panel is acutely aware of the disappointment this decision may cause the two other exceptional gymnasts, who have consistently displayed integrity and acted in good faith,” the panel commented.

USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee expressed their strong disagreement with the detailed decision, highlighting the significant delay in informing Chiles and U.S. officials about the matter. Notices were mistakenly sent to “incorrect email addresses,” and it wasn’t until August 9—three days after Romania’s appeal was filed and two days after the deadline for filing objections—that CAS contacted Chris McCleary, the general counsel for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.

Chiles and U.S. officials received just two more hours to respond to Romania’s appeal. Nevertheless, even with this extension, they had only about 10 hours to file their response, which was less than 24 hours before a hearing with CAS.

“Our objections are validated by new evidence showing administrative mistakes by FIG and issues with CAS handling, which we could not raise during the hurried hearing. Essentially, we were denied a fair chance to present our case,” the USOPC stated on Wednesday night.

Initially, Chiles finished fifth in the floor final on August 5, scoring 13.666, placing her behind Barbosu and Maneca-Voinea, who both scored 13.7, with Barbosu ranked higher due to a superior execution score.

However, Cecile Landi, Chiles’ personal coach and the U.S. coach in Paris, contested her difficulty score, claiming Chiles did not receive full credit for a tour jete (a jump). A review panel concurred, and the additional 0.100 point raised Chiles’ score above both Romanians, securing third place for her.

The Romanian team lodged an appeal with CAS on August 6, arguing that Chiles’ appeal was filed too late. Since Chiles was the final competitor in the floor final, she needed to make a verbal appeal within one minute of her score announcement, and then follow up with a written request.

During the hearing on August 10, the FIG’s women’s technical committee president acknowledged that there was no clear way to determine immediately whether the verbal appeal was submitted on time. The timing data from Omega, the official timing system for the Olympics, was not integrated with the FIG’s system or communicated to the appeal panel.

“At that moment, I believed the system did not block the initial verbal inquiry as being late. Thus, I viewed the written inquiry and thought, ‘OK, it must be fine,’” Donatella Sacchi, president of the women’s technical committee, testified.

“I proceeded because I cannot oversee the timing of the inquiries and their differences.”

The CAS panel also noted that the identity of the person to whom the verbal appeal was made remains unknown. It wasn’t a FIG staff member, Sacchi indicated, but an individual associated with the Paris event’s organization.

“Furthermore, they were unable to inform the Panel if there was any system in place to ensure compliance with the one-minute rule,” the complete decision noted.

The ruling leaves several other questions unresolved:

➤ When did the timer start for Chiles’ appeal? This is important because almost five seconds elapsed between when Chiles’ total score appeared on the arena Jumbotron and when the separate difficulty and execution scores were displayed, alerting Chiles’ coaches to the need for an appeal.

It’s unclear whether Chiles and her coaches saw those scores elsewhere before they appeared on the Jumbotron. However, USA Gymnastics reported that it submitted newly discovered video evidence to CAS, which “definitively shows” Landi made the verbal appeal 47 seconds after Chiles’ score was displayed. CAS promptly dismissed this, asserting that its ruling could not be re-evaluated even with new evidence.

➤ How is a verbal inquiry officially recorded? Does the person who receives it just press a button on a device? Or is detailed documentation needed, which may require additional time? What distance did Landi have to travel, and how much time did that involve, to register the verbal appeal?

➤ Whose “incorrect email addresses” did CAS use to contact officials from USA Gymnastics and the USOPC? Did anyone at FIG, who is a respondent in the case, inform USA Gymnastics that an appeal was made regarding Chiles?

When USA Gymnastics requested an extension after being finally contacted by CAS regarding McCleary, they mentioned that “[c]opies were secured circuitously from other parties.”

➤ What was the IOC’s reason for wanting a quick resolution before the Paris Games concluded? When queried about the potential for referring this case to the CAS Appeals Arbitration Division, the IOC rejected the idea, stating, “it would be both preferable and consistent with the purpose of the CAS Ad Hoc Division that a dispute regarding an event that occurred on 5 August 2024 be settled before the Olympic Games come to a close.”

This Wednesday, both USA Gymnastics and the USOPC declared their intention to continue advocating for Chiles by filing an appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, Switzerland’s top court.

“We remain steadfast in our quest for truth in this matter,” asserted the USOPC.