Jordan Chiles stood on the podium, a bronze medal around her neck, grinning from ear to ear. She saluted, feeling on top of the world—until, plot twist, the medal was taken away. Yep, stripped. One minute, she’s an Olympic medalist, the next… not. When asked, she kept it real: “It’s not a no, and it’s not a yes.” And honestly, after all that? Who could blame her?

Imagine grinding for four years, flipping, twisting, probably shedding a few tears, finally earning that medal—only to have it handed off to Romania’s Ana Barbosu instead. Brutal. Now, seven months later, she’s not sure if she’ll be tumbling into the 2028 Olympics. Jordan Chiles knows the heartbreak of having something ripped away.

“I was devastated. I was crying. And I felt like every single time I would accomplish something, something would be stripped away from me,” she admitted. And that time, it was an Olympic medal. Back in August, the 23-year-old’s Beyonce-inspired performance initially placed her fourth—until Team USA challenged her score, believing she had been shortchanged.

After a review, her score was bumped from 13.666 to 13.766, securing her the bronze. But then, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) made a shocking announcement: the objection came four seconds too late. In just four seconds, everything changed. “It was really hard to just comprehend,” Chiles said. She learned about the decision in the most gut-wrenching way—while sitting in a car. “

Suddenly, the car went quiet. I’m surprised everyone couldn’t hear the sound of my heart breaking, because it absolutely did, there in that back seat,” she wrote in her memoir, I’m That Girl. “Somewhere far away, I could see my mom shaking her head and hear her saying, ‘Why? Why?!’” It was the kind of moment that left you stunned, like the world just shifted underneath you.

Looking back, Chiles realized this wasn’t the first time she had something taken away from her. In her book, she opened up about a similar experience from her childhood—winning an award, only to have it stripped away. “At a younger age, I got an award, and it was taken from me,” she shared. “So to me, it was like a full-circle moment. My life had kind of spiraled. It was just a very hard moment. And I never knew that I was going to have to go through that again.”

Following all the pain she has experienced, who could hold it against her for her reaction? The real question now is whether her bronze medal is gone forever.