The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland is now considering an appeal to decide the fate of the bronze medal awarded to American gymnast Jordan Chiles at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The bronze was initially awarded to Chiles, then taken away as a result of a decision by The Court of Arbitration for Sport in a rules dispute and awarded to competitor Romanian Ana Bărbosu.
“It is so fascinating to me the intersection of sports and appeals,” said NC Court of Appeals Judge Allegra Collins. “It’s essentially everything that interests me all in one place. The confluence of these circumstances, plus the intense media coverage of the bronze medal controversy this past summer, triggered my interest in following the case closely.”
Collins held members of the Wake County Bar Association spellbound as she explained the case at its January luncheon.
Calculation Inquiry
Jordan Chiles competed in the women’s floor exercise on August 5 at the 2024 Paris Olympics. After her performance, the judges’ scores put her in fifth place behind Romanian gymnast Ana Bărbosu, who was in third place, and Romanian gymnast Sabrina Voinea, who was in fourth. Chiles’ coach filed an inquiry regarding how her score was calculated.
“Based on the inquiry, the Gymnastics Technical Committee reviewed Jordan’s D-score (degree of difficulty) and increased it by 0.1 point,” explained Collins. “This revised score moved Jordan into bronze medal position, displacing Bărbosu.”
A medal ceremony took place during which Chiles was awarded the bronze.
Arbitration for Sport
Enter The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). It was created 40 years ago to quickly resolve sports-related disputes. The CAS Ad Hoc Division was created in 1996 to resolve disputes arising at the Atlanta Olympic Games. Every Olympic Games since then has had a CAS panel available on site to resolve disputes arising at the Games.
“CAS provides an independent and specialized forum for resolving sports-related disputes through arbitration and mediation. It functions independently from all sports and sports-related entities,” explained Collins. Members of its governing body, the International Council of Arbitration for Sport, include sports law experts, former judges, and members of sports federations.
CAS’s jurisdiction is derived from arbitration clauses in contracts, competition rules, and statutes of sports organizations. International sports governing bodies and international sporting events, such as the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, and the FIFA World Cup, refer their disputes to CAS for resolution. Its awards are binding and enforceable under the 1958 New York Convention, with limited avenue of appeal to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland.
When an athlete wants to compete in one of these international events, they execute an agreement to let CAS’s Ad Hoc Division arbitrate any disputes.
‘It Resonated With Me’
“I have always been keenly interested in the Olympics as a spectator and aspiring competitor,” said Collins.
She was a member of the junior Women’s Team Handball Team that trained in Atlanta with the senior Women’s Team Handball Team as it prepared to compete in the 1996 Olympics.
Collins represented the United States in the Pan American Games in 1999 and 2003 as a member of the U.S. Women’s Team Handball Team. “We would have qualified for the Olympics with a gold medal at the Pan Am Games, but we lost in the semi-finals both times,” recalled Collins, who was an NCAA finalist as a member of the tennis team at UCLA. Chiles is enrolled at UCLA.
“[The Chiles case] certainly resonated with me. When you compete in sports, especially at high levels, you’re extremely aware of how referees’ or judges’ scores impact the results and the unfairness you feel, when you feel like they got it wrong. Watching both athletes on TV, when each one thought they had won, and when each one thought they had lost, I think everybody’s heart went out to both of them.”
The Appeal
After Chiles was awarded the bronze, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation objected to the revised scoring, saying it took Chiles’ coach too long to file her inquiry. Chiles’ coach’s inquiry took one minute and four seconds. The limit is one minute. The Romanians filed an appeal with the CAS. It agreed and Chiles was stripped of her gold medal and it was awarded to Barbosu.
Several days later, USA Gymnastics obtained a video from a Netflix team that was shooting a documentary about Simone Biles. Chiles’ coach was mic’ed up during Chiles’ event. “[Chiles’ coach] received audio and video which suggests that her inquiry may have been submitted within the allowable one-minute time frame,” said Collins.
USA Gymnastics asked CAS to re-open the case, but CAS declined, stating it has no procedure to allow it to reopen a case to consider new evidence.
The Romanians proposed awarding bronze medals to Chiles, Bărbosu, and Voinea. The three athletes agreed to the plan. The International Olympic Committee turned thumbs down.
So, USA Gymnastics has appealed CAS’s refusal to reopen the case to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, which is now considering it.
“The Swiss Tribunal could either affirm CAS, it could reverse CAS or could send it back to CAS to hear the new evidence, or they could do nothing, or they could do something else, so it remains to be seen what might happen,” explained Collins.
“This incident has really shone a light on the importance of procedure in the sports world, and it is very similar to the importance of procedure in literally every legal proceeding. A lot of issues came up in the CAS hearing, which suggested that the processes and procedures for scoring inquiries in international gymnastics competitions should have been fairer and clearer.”
Pride and Honor
In the lobby after the WCBA lunch, several attorneys pondered what a third place is worth from a personal injury perspective; what would be the economic damages?
“Those certainly could be debated,” said Collins. “As a Remedies Professor [at Campbell School of Law], I look forward to maybe sometime debating this with my class.”
“What’s honestly at stake here for both athletes is the honor of bringing home a bronze medal as a representative of your country. We’re really talking about pride and honor and being able to call yourself an Olympic medalist.”
