Jordan Chiles fought for an Olympic medal on the mats in Paris, and now she will continue that fight in a Swiss court.
It took a score inquiry appeal from her coaches to elevate Chiles from fifth place to third place at the end of the Paris Games and an appeal from the Romanians to the Center of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which overturned Chiles’ score and stripped her of a medal.
Now, Chiles will appeal her case to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland to prove she is the true bronze medal winner.
“Chiles asks the Supreme Court to find that the CAS decision was procedurally deficient for two reasons,” Chiles’ lawyers said in a statement.
“First, CAS violated Chiles’ fundamental ‘right to be heard’ by refusing to consider the video evidence that showed her inquiry was submitted on time – in direct contradiction to the findings in CAS’ decision.
“Second, the entire CAS proceeding was unfair because Chiles was not properly informed that Hamid G. Gharavi, the President of the CAS panel that revoked Chiles’s bronze medal and awarded it instead to a Romanian gymnast, had a serious conflict of interest: Mr. Gharavi has acted as counsel for Romania for almost a decade and was actively representing Romania at the time of the CAS arbitration.
“Today’s appeal filing was supported by the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), which filed a letter in support of Chiles’ appeal.”
In an interview at the Forbes Power Women’s Summit, Chiles asserted that the attempt to strip her of her medal had a racial element.
“To me, everything that has gone on is not about the medal; it’s about, you know, my skin color,” Chiles said, becoming emotional.
“It’s about the fact that there were things that have led up to this position of being an athlete and I felt like everything has been stripped.”
