New footage from Simone Biles’ Netflix documentary, Simone Biles: Rising, generated newfound hope for Jordan Chiles, who lost her bronze medal in the women’s floor exercise finals in Paris due to the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Jordan won bronze in the women’s floor exercise final after an appeal by her coach. However, after the Romanian Gymnastics Federation filed an appeal claiming that Chiles’ coach, Cecile Landi, was four seconds late in appealing in adhering to the 60-second deadline requirement, CAS dropped Chiles to fifth place, awarding bronze to Romania’s Ana Barbosu.
The video posted by Gymnastics Now on X sheds light on the controversy. The footage showed Chiles’ floor exercise scores displayed, followed by her coach, Cecile Landi, repeatedly calling for an inquiry, “Inquiry for Jordan!”
The timestamps indicate that Landi’s appeal was initiated precisely 49 seconds after the final scores were released, within the required one-minute window.
“It appears to show the score posted at 15:31:53 and at 15:32:55, video shows Cecile Landi walking away from the inquiry table, presumably having already verbally inquired, before turning back briefly.“
However, the situation quickly became complicated when the recipient of Landi’s question initially appeared to have difficulty hearing or understanding the inquiry.
Here is the video of Jordan Chiles’ inquiry with audio ⬇️
Cecile Landi appears to inquire within the 1 minute time limit, according to the time stamps, but the person receiving the inquiry seems to have trouble hearing it initially. pic.twitter.com/UfKI7tPBld
— Gymnastics Now (@Gymnastics_Now) September 17, 2024
The footage was provided by director Katie Walsh and the production company Religion of Sports. The team was granted special permission in Paris to film at Bercy Arena as part of Biles‘ documentary. The crew had planned to include Olympic-related events in the Netflix docuseries, which is set to have two additional episodes later this year.
Earlier, USA Gymnastics said it had received a footage that could be vital evidence supporting Chiles’ inquiry, which Landi had submitted on time during the event.
Even though they provided this evidence to CAS without disclosing any public information about the source, CAS rejected it, arguing that the footage could not be submitted after a final decision had been made.
Chiles then formally challenged the CAS decision at the Swiss Federal Tribunal, where her attorneys presented evidence that not only revealed the source of the new video clip, which lasted over 7 minutes, but also included a hyperlink to it.
According to the documents, the documentary’s director’s crew had three cameras set up in Bercy Arena, as well as audio from Landi, who was required to wear a microphone for recording.
This eventually helped gather sufficient proof, which was then forwarded to the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, and Chiles’ mother, Gina.
The American gymnast has been fighting for her individual Olympic bronze medal up until now, and once the video becomes public, fans will unite with her to reclaim the well-deserved medal.
