The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced Sunday that it would appeal a decision to strip gymnast Jordan Childs of her bronze medal after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ordered a correction of the scores.
The IOC ruled Sunday that Chile must hand over its medal to Romania’s Ana Barbos after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Saturday invalidated an appeal filed by U.S. team coach Cecil Lundy during last week’s competition. The Associated Press reported.
The United States is now appealing the decision, it announced in a statement shortly before the closing ceremony of the Paris Games.
“We firmly believe that Jordan rightfully won the bronze medal. There were significant errors both in the original scoring by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and in the subsequent appeals process at CAS which must be addressed,” the commission said in a statement.
“The first error occurred during the FIG scoring and the second error occurred during the CAS appeals process, and the USOPC was not given sufficient time or notice to effectively challenge the decision,” he continued. “As a result, we were not adequately represented or given the opportunity to comprehensively present our case.”
in Saturday’s ruling According to the Associated Press, the CAS said Randi’s appeal, which asked for 0.1 points to be added to Chiles’ score, fell outside the 60-second grace period allowed by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG). The CAS said Randi’s appeal came 64 seconds after Chiles’ initial score was announced.
Chiles initially received a score of 13.666 and was in fifth place before her coach called for an investigation.
In its ruling Saturday, the CAS reconsidered its original rankings and wrote that Barbos should be ranked third, Romania’s Sabrina Maneca-Boinea fourth and Chile’s fifth. The CAS left it to the FIG to decide who will be the bronze medalist, behind gold medalist Rebeca Andrade of Brazil and silver medalist Simone Biles of the United States.
Chiles, a two-time Olympian, posted twice to her Instagram Story on Saturday, the first with four broken heart emojis against a black background and the second saying, “I am taking this time to step away from social media for my mental health. Thank you.”
Miranda Nazzaro contributed.
