Team USA gymnast and “Dancing With the Stars” contestant Jordan Chiles said that race may have played a part in her bronze medal from last summer’s Olympics being rescinded.
In an iconic moment from the XXXIII Olympiad, which was held in Paris, Chiles placed third in the women’s floor exercise, resulting in the historic first of an “all-black podium” shared with Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade and fellow U.S. Olympian Simone Biles, a crowning moment of the “woke” era in sports.
The Paris Olympics just made gymnastics history – again.
Gymnasts Rebeca Andrade, Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles became the first all-Black podium in men or women’s gymnastics at the Olympics. https://t.co/ty5DH0fe1z
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 5, 2024
But her joy would be short-lived as the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) would soon overturn a scoring change that resulted in the third-place finish, pushing her back down to fifth, a crushing blow that she believes may have been influenced by racism.
The 24-year-old unpacked the traumatic experience during an appearance on the latest episode of the “Baby, this is Keke Palmer” podcast, describing it as a “devastating time” in her life and opining that some people weren’t down with the “all-black” podium.
(Video Credit: Baby, this is Keke Palmer)
Chiles was asked whether she “accepted” that she had “experienced racism” after her triumphant moment was overturned by the court.
“At first, I didn’t think of it in that way until I started almost literally getting racist comments and saying this and saying that and basically telling like people were telling me to kill myself, and it got to a really, really tough point,” she said.
“I had to get off of social media for a while. Because it was, you know, it was really hard to even see that, as an athlete, like, let alone an athlete, I’m up, there, yes, it’s an ‘all-black’ podium, which is very rare, it’s obviously something that people don’t like,” Chiles added.
“As being a woman of color, I started seeing it more. They didn’t want to see that, they didn’t want to see three beautiful black women standing on that podium,” the gymnast claimed. “They didn’t want to see the fact that we were just dominating. And I really took that to heart.”
It’s not the first time the jilted gymnast has cried racism over the loss of her bronze.
“The biggest thing that was taken from me was … the recognition of who I was. Not just my sport, but the person I am,” she said during a conversation with Moira Forbes at the Forbes Power Women’s Summit in September 2024.
“The biggest thing that was taken from me was the recognition of who I was, not just my sport, but the person I am.”
Olympic Gymnast @ChilesJordan spoke with @MoiraForbes about being stripped of her bronze medal at the 2024 #PowerWomensSummit. https://t.co/trq44G0BKt pic.twitter.com/QKbkpM8Ek8
— Forbes (@Forbes) September 11, 2024
“To me, everything that has gone on is not about the medal, it’s about, you know, my skin color,” she added.
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