Its already been seven months. Seven months since Jordan Chiles was stripped of her bronze medal. Seven months since perhaps the most dramatic Olympic controversy in gymnastics. In what was set to be the crowning moment for Chiles with her bronze win, it was instead a moment of solemn misery as a late decision led to Romanian Ana Barbosu winning the bronze back. But the drama? Far from over.

Let’s rewind to August 2024, when Barbosu had just made history as Romania’s first gymnastics medalist since 2012, standing on the podium, Romanian flag in hand, beaming. And then—chaos. A last-minute inquiry boosted Chiles’s difficulty score, rightfully giving her the bronze. Chiles and her team erupted in celebration, while Barbosu broke down in tears.

Yet instead of celebrating, Chiles got hit with a wave of racist backlash. Social media exploded with disgusting comments like, “Yes, you’re a nig, and you were rewarded for it. We know that,” and “Give back the stolen medal!” It was brutal. She tried to block it out, but the hate kept coming. That’s when her mom, Gina, stepped in. She told her to take a break from social media, and Chiles listened.

To lift her spirits, Gina took her on a much-needed Disney trip. For a moment, things felt normal. But then it was back to reality—Chiles had a media tour lined up in New York. So, off they went—Jordan, Gina, her publicist Noa, and her sister Jazmin. She

had big interviews with Glamour, Teen Vogue, Self, and GQ Sports. It was supposed to be her moment to own her story.

But just as they walked into the building, Gina’s phone rang.  One call. That was all it took for everything to change—a moment so surreal, so gut-wrenching, that Jordan would later recount it in her memoir, I’m That Girl: Living the Power of My Dreams.

The call that pulled the rug out from under them

Just as they walked into the Condé Nast building, Gina’s phone rang. “Uhhh, I gotta take this,” she told Jordan Chiles, stepping away without a second thought. But on the other end of the line was a call that would flip their world upside down. The USA Gymnastics officials panicked as they grasped the news. “Gina, we can’t even explain what is happening right now,” they said.

“We’re so, so sorry, but we just got notification that the Romanian Gymnastics Federation has filed a motion against the FIG.” A CAS panel received a legal challenge from Romania regarding the bronze medal victory of Jordan. The lawsuit included the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and its judge, Donatella Sacchi USA Gymnastics, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and Jordan as “interested parties.”

The information seemed too much for Gina to comprehend. USA Gymnastics reacted in shock when they first learned about the lawsuit because it was directed to an incorrect email by CAS. The real crisis? The client needed to obtain counsel within the remaining 46 minutes until the deadline arrived. And the hearing? The hearing would begin at 8 a.m. Paris time while people in New York were still in the middle of their night’s rest.

“Wait, what?” Gina attempted to get them to lower their pace when she asked her question. “So you mean we’re going to be asleep when this thing happens? They’re going to rule on Jordan’s medal in the middle of the night for us?”   The lack of time prevented any possible explanations. USA Gymnastics and USOPC applied to CAS for more time but the organization rejected their request. The reasoning?

The hearing had to happen as planned because the panel handling the case was part of CAS’s Ad Hoc Division, a temporary tribunal that would dissolve once the Olympics ended. “Look, we know this is a lot to process,” they told Gina. “It’s a lot for us too. But it’s just wise to have somebody who’s there to represent Jordan. It’s probably just precautionary. The filing is ridiculous, and we don’t believe CAS could possibly rule in Romania’s favor. But we need you to decide right now because we have less than an hour.”

Up until this moment, Gina had been shielding Jordan from the dispute, knowing she was already overwhelmed with hate messages and struggling emotionally. “With all the hate messages coming in, I was already beginning to retreat into myself. I was trying to fight off depression at what should have been my happiest moment.”

Jordan had gone from collapsing in joy on the arena floor to being too afraid to even look at her phone. She had barely had time to celebrate before the backlash started. Now, Jordan Chiles was being dragged into a legal fight over the very thing she had worked her whole life for. Gina rushed down the Conde Nast hallway, spotting Jordan standing with Noa and Jazmin.

On the surface, Gina looked calm, but inside, she was unraveling. She had to tell Jordan that, in a matter of hours, a court would decide whether she got to keep her Olympic medal—and there was nothing they could do to stop it. But what happened next?

A judge with ties to Romania? Jordan Chiles thinks so.

In a move that no one saw coming, the International Olympic Committee stripped the medal of Jordan Chiles. Just 11 days after her podium win, the medal was handed back to Ana Barbosu. The reason for this was simply that Chiles’s last-minute inquiry was four seconds late. As a result, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announced the retroactive denial of her inquiry.

The subsequent score adjustment had dropped her to 5th place overall. For Barbosu, it was a moment of elation; for Chiles, devastation. But the fight wasn’t over. In the months that followed, Chile’s legal team formally appealed the ruling to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, seeking to overturn the CAS decision.

By January 2025, she had submitted two additional briefs to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, challenging not just the decision itself but the legitimacy of the panel that made it. The heart of her argument? Dr. Hamid D. Gharavi, the president of the CAS panel that ruled against her, had long-standing ties to Romanian interests—posing a serious conflict of interest.

Chiles argued that Dr. Gharavi’s presence on the three-arbitrator panel compromised the fairness of the ruling because he had represented Romania in multiple investor-state arbitrations before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. Jordan Chiles also argued that the process had been fundamentally flawed, saying the “serious procedural deficiencies” denied her the right to a fair tribunal.

Chiles pushed back against claims from Barbosu and the Romanian Gymnastics Federation that she had been informed of Dr. Gharavi’s Romanian ties the day before CAS revoked her medal. Instead, she pointed to evidence showing that Dr. Gharavi’s acceptance and independence form was never delivered to USA Gymnastics’ counsel, a crucial misstep that could weaken the opposition’s case.

If proven, this could be a game-changing argument in her ongoing battle to reclaim her Olympic medal.