Jordan Chiles Is Being Asked To Give Back Her Bronze Medal :: Is Twice as Good Not Enough?
I’ve heard it all my life but most of the world heard it when Papa Pope told Olivia, “You have to be twice as good as them to get half of what they have.”
And sometimes that still isn’t enough.
By now, most people have seen how Jordan Chiles’ difficult routine was improperly scored by judges during the Floor Routine Final of the Paris Olympics. A very quick overview for folks who may not be familiar with gymnastics scoring; in elite gymnastics, which is what the Olympics consist of, gymnasts are scored on two different elements. Gymnasts are given a “D” score (difficulty) and an “E” score (execution). These scores are added together to give the total. Execution is basically how well you execute the skill, whereas difficulty is based on how many skills you perform / connect, as well as whether or not you actually HIT the skill. Different skills have different difficulty values; for example, a front tuck on the beam is an “E” skill, so on and so forth. Judges have to decide if a gymnast hits her skills in order to determine the difficulty of the routine.
What transpired in Paris is that the judges did not give Jordan skill credit for one of her dance sequences on floor. As a result, she initially received 5th place with a score of 13.666. Of course, 5th place knocked her out of the running for an Olympic medal. Her coaches immediately filed an inquiry about her difficulty score, challenging whether proper credit was given for a specific dance skill, and as a result of the inquiry she received the correct score, increasing her score by 0.1 – this moved her to 3rd place, a bronze medal.
Rebeca Andrade from Brazil won gold, Simone Biles won silver and Jordan earned bronze. This made history. This was the very first time that the world saw an all-black podium in gymnastics. When they announced Rebeca as the gold medalist, Simone said that Jordan asked, “Should we bow to her?” Simone replied, “Absolutely!” This image went viral. Three black women at the top of their game, the best of the best supporting and uplifting each other. It was beautiful to see. As a black woman and mother to a future black woman – it’s amazing to witness. The Paris Olympics made me proud to be a black woman.
Until…
on Saturday – news broke that her coaches’ inquiry came four seconds after the one inquiry minute window. And her medal may have to be returned. Excuse me, what? She’s being stripped of her medal?! A week later? The finals were on Monday; everything came out on Saturday evening an entire five days later. Jordan was already back in the US on a press tour with her medal. In fact, her home gym – World Champions Centre – had already welcomed Jordan and Simone back with a big party and everything. The gym was home to two floor medalists, deservedly so.
When this news broke, Jordan posted to her stories that she was removing herself from social media for her mental health. Can you imagine how she feels? Just the emotional strain of being incorrectly scored, then having someone stand up for you (her coach filing an inquiry), being announced the bronze medalist, celebrating this amazing win with family and friends, to your medal possibly being stripped?!
And for what?!?! Not because of her urine having an illegal/ banned substance or for cheating but because the judges incorrectly scored her difficulty score after her routine. There is actually no question about what the score SHOULD be. They were wrong. Her difficulty score combined with execution was higher than the other gymnasts, and it still wasn’t good enough for someone to try and strip her hard work.
Social media erupted! Her sister, Jazmin, hadn’t used her Twitter account in TWO YEARS but started to tweet about everything. The truth is – the judges did not correctly score her routine! She’s only being stripped of her medal because of the 4-second timeframe THAT WOULDN’T HAVE NEEDED TO COME INTO PLAY IF HER SCORE WAS CORRECT THE FIRST TIME!!!
(taken from The Neighborhood Talk blog)
Later on, it came out that there were receipts the inquiry came at the 47-second mark within the 1-minute timeframe. There is video evidence of this!!! Come on, receipts!!! Team USA Gym is appealing the appeal the Romanians filed.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. All I know is Jordan better keep her medal. They would not be able to get it back from me. I’ll be like Rose from the Titanic and drop it in the ocean before I ever return something that I earned.
They would need to just make the Romanian girl another medal because y’all ain’t getting this from me!!! And at this point, I don’t even want to use Times New Roman font. I don’t know if that’s Romanian but it’s too close to that name.
Jordan, we support you and are rallying behind you. The United States of America is the land of litigation and lawsuits so I am more than positive you will be able to keep your medal!
