Jordan Chiles opens up on losing Olympic bronze medal: ‘I followed the rules’
(NEW YORK) — Olympian Jordan Chiles opened up this week in her first interview since being stripped of her bronze medal from the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The star gymnast, whose bronze medal in the women’s gymnastics floor exercise final was revoked in August, spoke on the subject at the 2024 Forbes Power Women’s Summit in New York City on Wednesday.
“The biggest thing that was taken from me was that it was the recognition of who I was,” said Chiles, pausing halfway through and becoming emotional. “Not just my sport, but the person I am.”
“To me, everything that has gone on, it’s not about the medal, it’s about my skin color, it’s about the fact that there were things that have led up to this position of being an athlete,” she said.
She added, “I felt like when I was back in 2018, where I did lose the love of this sport. I lost it again. I felt like I was really left in the dark.”
Chiles referenced a coach she said she had in 2018, who she claimed “emotionally and verbally abused” her, though she did not name them, and said losing her medal made her feel voiceless again.
“I wasn’t able to be heard,” she said.
She added, “I made history and I will always continue to make history, and something that I rightfully did, I followed the rules. My coach followed the rules. We did everything that was totally, completely right.”
Initially, Chiles finished fifth in the individual floor exercise final at the Paris Olympics, only to be moved up to the bronze medal spot after her coaches appealed the scoring of one of the elements in her routine. In moving from fifth to third, she leaped over two Romanian gymnasts — including Ana Barbosu, who had already begun celebrating bronze.
The International Gymnastics Federation has since awarded Barbosu third place, after the Court of Arbitration for Sport voided the appeal made by Chiles’ coach at the event, with CAS saying Chiles’ score was “raised after the conclusion of the one-minute deadline.” In stating the challenge came too late, the CAS reinstated Chiles’ incorrect 13.666 score.
CAS later said it would not hear Chiles’ appeal to keep her bronze medal from the Paris Olympics despite new evidence, according to USA Gymnastics.
Following the unsuccessful appeal, Chiles took to Instagram to share her feelings on losing the medal.
“I have no words. This decision feels unjust and comes as a significant blow, not just to me, but to everyone who has championed my journey,” she wrote in a statement at the time.
“To add to the heartbreak, the unprompted racially driven attacks on social media are wrong and extremely hurtful. I’ve poured my heart and soul into this sport and I am so proud to represent my culture and my country,” she continued.
Chiles took home one medal from the Olympics, helping Team USA secure gold in the women’s artistic team all-around event. She was also a part of the silver medal-winning team at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE N.Y. Yankees 6, Philadelphia Phillies 5 Minnesota Twins 8, N.Y. Mets 3 Miami Marlins 6, Tampa Bay Rays 2 St. Louis Cardinals 10, Texas Rangers 1 Houston Astros 5, Pittsburgh Pirates 4 San Francisco Giants 1, Oakland Athletics 0 Colorado Rockies 2, Los Angeles Angels 1
AMERICAN LEAGUE Baltimore Orioles 10, Toronto Blue Jays 4 Kansas City Royals 10, Chicago White Sox 3 Boston Red Sox 3, Seattle Mariners 2
NATIONAL LEAGUE Chicago Cubs 13, Cincinnati Reds 4 Atlanta Braves 6 Milwaukee Brewers 2 Arizona Diamondbacks 5, Washington Nationals 4 San Diego Padres 8, L.A. Dodgers 1
(NEW YORK) — American gymnast Simone Biles is considered by many to be the G.O.A.T — the Greatest Of All Time — and for good reason.
“I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I’m the first Simone Biles,” she told reporters at the 2016 Olympics.
Here’s a look at Biles’ historic gymnastics career thus far as she heads to her third Olympic Games, this year in Paris, France:
Most decorated gymnast of all time
Her rise to fame began in the wake of the 2012 Olympics, which Biles was too young to qualify for.
In 2013, at the age of 16, she secured four medals — two golds — in her first appearance at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
In 2014, she won four golds and a silver at the competition. In 2015, she scored another four gold medals and a bronze. In 2018, she won four golds, one silver, and one bronze. In 2019, she won five gold medals. In 2023, she won four golds and one silver.
Overall, she’s scored 30 world titles, 23 as a gold medal winner, according to the official Olympics website.
In her first Olympic Games in 2016, Biles won four gold medals and one bronze. In Tokyo, she won one silver and one bronze before sitting out for the rest of the competition to focus on her mental and physical health.
Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history — male or female — according to the Olympics. In all, she has 37 world and Olympic medals combined.
She has five moves named after her
Biles now has five signature moves named after her in three different events: on the floor, on vault, and on the balance beam.
“Many people aren’t even attempting to do them because there’s such high difficulty high risk maneuvers, and she does them with complete ease and effort,” Dominique Dawes, a three-time Olympian and 18-year gymnastics veteran. “It’s amazing to watch what she’s doing. And she does it with a smile on her face.”
For a move to be named after an athlete in gymnastics, the gymnast has to submit a video of them performing the move to the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique Women’s Technical Committee.
The committee determines the difficulty of the skill, and if it receives a high enough difficulty score, it is then eligible to be named.
Then, a gymnast must perform the move without “a major fault” at an international competition.
The “Biles on the floor” — first successfully completed by Biles on the world stage in 2013 at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships — is a double layout with a half-twist, which means that her body remains straight and elongated as she flips twice.
Her second signature move on the floor, “Biles II,” was first successfully completed on the world stage in 2019. For this move, Biles performs a triple-double, meaning she Biles flips twice while twisting three times before hitting the ground.
The Biles on the vault is a round-off, into a back hand-spring with a half turn, completing the move by twisting twice in a somersault. It one of the most difficult vaults in women’s artistic gymnastics, with a difficulty score of 6.4.
Biles II on the vault is the most recent move to be named after the athlete. In 2023, she became the first woman to land the Yurchenko double pike, a move that consists of a backflip off the vault and two full rotations in a pike position before landing.
The Biles on the balance beam, completed in 2019, features a double-double dismount from the beam — two flips and two twists.
Dawes was a gymnast during the old ways of scoring — which is when gymnasts aimed simply for a “perfect 10.” Now, gymnasts are scored on two metrics — the perfect 10 of execution and the open-ended scoring of difficulty that gymnasts have free reign of collecting points on.
Dawes said that with the old way of scoring, there was “no need to push yourself beyond that value.” Now, “sky is the limit” for athletes like Biles.
“It really is Simone versus herself.” Dawes said. “That’s really what makes her one of the greatest of all time … Back then they used to cap our scores. And so now with this new scoring system, the sky is the limit for athletes like Simone, who’s very talented. And so if she does a higher, difficult maneuver on any of the different pieces of apparatus, she’ll actually get credit for it.”
Prioritizing her mental and physical health
Simone Biles pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics before finishing the individual all-around competition and the team final following a shocking stumble on vault.
“We wholeheartedly support Simone’s decision and applaud her bravery in prioritizing her well-being. Her courage shows, yet again, why she is a role model for so many,” USA Gymnastics said in a statement.
Her exit shined a light on mental health among elite athletes who face intense pressures as the world watches. She later also discussed how her exit was tied to her struggle to recover mentally after being sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar.
Biles has also been outspoken about experiencing depression and having to take anxiety medication in the fallout of the Nassar abuse.
“As a recent competitor in the Tokyo Games who was a survivor of this horror, I can assure you the impacts of this man’s abuse are not over or ever forgotten,” Biles said at a 2021 Congressional hearing. “The announcement in the spring of 2020 that the Tokyo Games were to be postponed for a year meant that I would be going to the gym, to training, to therapy, living daily among the reminders of this story for another 365 days.”
Biles qualified in all six of the women’s gymnastics finals at the Tokyo Olympics and was expected to win an unprecedented six gold medals. The goal was to become the first woman since 1968 to win back-to-back titles in the all-around.
“I just never felt like this going into a competition before,” Biles said at a press conference Tuesday following the team final. “I tried to go out here and have fun, and warm up in the back went a little bit better, but once I came out here I was like, ‘No, mental is not there.’”
“It’s been really stressful this Olympic Games, just as a whole,” said Biles to reporters at the time. “It’s been a long week. It’s been a long Olympic process. It’s been a long year.”
(NEW YORK) — Ahead of an exciting opening night for the 144th U.S. Open at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York, on Monday, the last American man to win the singles title on that court, Andy Roddick, received a special honor from the USTA Foundation for all of his work as a philanthropist and role model.
“It’s kind of humbling to get an award for philanthropy in the house of Arthur Ashe, in the tennis center of Billie Jean King,” Roddick told ABC News’ Good Morning America on Tuesday after accepting the Serving Up Dreams Award. “I have always said I don’t think tennis gets enough credit for its absolute icons — the people on [its] Mount Rushmore speaking out for social change, doing something bigger than themselves.”
Roddick founded his eponymous foundation in 2000 at just 17 years old with a mission of improving the lives of children and families, to keep kids learning so they can succeed, especially during times when statistics show they’re typically most at risk and falling behind.
“When your heroes do stuff, you fall in line, and all of a sudden you’re doing tennis clinics when you’re young just because Andre Agassi does it, and he set the precedent,” the 41-year-old Grand Slam winner said. “Out of school time matters in a huge way — summer learning loss in lower socioeconomic areas is a big, big deal. So, a parent not having to decide to leave work early to go pick up their kids for their own safety is a big, big deal.”
The Austin, Texas-based tennis stalwart added, “The award is great, I’m happy for our team, but I’m most happy for our kids.”
Tennis legend Andy Roddick shares US Open predictions
Roddick, who won the US Open in 2003, also reflected on the dynamic pool of next-generation American talent who are taking the court over the next two weeks in Flushing with big names like Ben Shelton, Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, Sebastian Korda and Tommy Paul.
“Specifically with the American men, as we currently stand, we have 25% of the Top 20 men [in the world rankings]. That’s a big deal,” he said. “Five in the Top 20 on the men’s side, five in the Top 20 on the women’s side.”
“It seems like they have kind of this healthy jealousy where they all get along, they all respect each other, they all support each other. But also, I feel there’s a little bit of FOMO if someone makes a run to the semis,” he said of the aforementioned singles stars. “I hope someone breaks out in a big way.”
Andy Roddick weighs in on Jannik Sinner doping case
Italian tennis star Jannik Sinner was not suspended from the US Open, despite twice testing positive for steroids, which has drummed up lots of opinions from current and former players, including Roddick.
“There’s a little known Italian player, Marco Bortolotti, who went through the exact same thing two months ago,” he began. “The most recent precedent with the similar circumstances — they found no fault, no negligence. That’s just the way it goes.”
He continued, “People are talking about it’s unfair. It would have been unfair had he gotten a different ruling than someone who was 350 in the World and 110 in the World in Doubles. I don’t think he would put everything at risk for something that didn’t benefit him. It was one billionth of a gram. He’s either the dumbest person on Earth or we should believe him on merit.”
‘Served with Andy Roddick’ takes show live on the road
Roddick also hosts the podcast “Served with Andy Roddick,” breaking down all things tennis with a fresh spin and proceeds going to the Andy Roddick Foundation.
During the US Open, the podcast, presented by Chase, is popping up at the rooftop of Pier 17 for live shows open to Sapphire Reserve members, which is slated to include tennis super fan Seal as a guest on Wednesday.
“He’s a massive, massive tennis fan, and he’s like my energy guru,” Roddick said. “Tennis is largely ignored outside of the live events, so [it’s] just a friendly place to get content on a normal Tuesday.”
For local fans who want to get in on the action, there are also opportunities to book a rooftop tennis clinic with Roddick through Chase experiences.