Romania’s quest for redemption took a dramatic turn at the Paris Olympics as the spotlight fell on Jordan Chiles. Her bronze medal performance sparked fresh debate after a single inquiry shifted the fortunes in the final event of women’s artistic gymnastics. Initially in sixth place, Chiles saw her score change following Team USA’s challenge, moving her to a bronze medal position at Bercy Arena on Monday. As the gymnastics world awaits more updates, the Romanian team’s role adds to the growing anticipation and raises questions about what’s next.

Recently, GYMeme shared on X that Team Romania’s Mihai Covaliu sent a protest letter to the International Gymnastics Federation, directly addressing President Morinari Watanabe. The letter called for a reanalysis of Sabrina Voinea Maneca’s floor exercise score. During the review, Romania’s Ana Barbosu began celebrating, believing she had secured the bronze medal and proudly waving her country’s flag. However, the inquiry led to a score adjustment for Jordan Chiles, raising her routine’s value from a C-start to a D.

This increased Chiles’ score from 13.666 to 13.766, pushing her ahead of Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, who scored 13.700. As Barbosu looked up in disbelief and saw Chiles surpass her, she dropped her flag. The 18-year-old walked away from the floor in tears, needing consolation as she processed the sudden change in her fortunes. From the very beginning, coach Cecile Landy was not entirely convinced that Chiles’ score was correct, so she proceeded to send an appeal to the committee, and she was right. Chiles began to cry after seeing her score overturned in an undeniably inspiring spectacle for a highly U.S. gymnast.

Chiles was overjoyed after seeing the final scoreboard and could not hold back her tears while telling the reporters, “I just wanted to come out and do the best I could… I have no words — I’m just very proud of myself.” This way, the Romanian gymnast’s dream of getting the medal is ruined. She respected Chiles’ performance, though she struggled to comprehend why her meticulous inquiry had been so promptly dismissed by the judges who gladly endorsed Chiles’ routine and augmented her score by a 0.1. She expressed, with heartache, that “I had much better exercise than her,” with a strong assertion. She thought she performed better than Chiles and was completely disappointed by the judges. 

Even though Chiles looked okay during the inquiry, her statement to the reporter reflected that it actually impacted her mentally. Like, she said, “They had told me when they [filed the inquiry] and I was like, ‘OK let’s see what they come back with”. However, it was a completely unexpected thing for her, and winning the Bronze at the last moment instilled more confidence and excitement. After the match, many Romanian gymnastic legends like Nadia Comăneci’s comment came into the spotlight as she wrote on her X handle, “I can’t believe we play with athletes mental health and emotions like this… let’s protect them,”– criticizing the judges for changing the last-time score like that. Now, the question is, will this drastic change in the final scoreboard affect the upcoming events at the Olympics?

Future outcomes and speculations about Jordan Chiles next move

The women’s gymnastics floor final at the 2024 Olympics ended dramatically as U.S. star Jordan Chiles received an unexpected score adjustment that altered the outcome. “It’s funny how people can still never be happy for someone…” Chiles wrote on X as a quick response to Nadia’s tweet. However, the match was one of the most exciting ones, and the last twist at the end left spectators in a complete shock. Some are happy, and a few are raising questions. When Chiles saw the score change, she started jumping up and down next to gymnast Simone Biles.

She then ran and fell to the floor crying, before hugging Biles and coach Cecile Landi as she was the first one to see the changed score. However, the viewers were sharing different thoughts on this. They were filled with so many emotions, saying that looking at Bărbosu was a “heartbreaking” and “crushing” moment. One fan wrote on X, “Happy for Jordan Chiles, but man, that shot of the Romanian realizing she lost her place on the podium is heartbreaking.” After getting all the heartwarming messages, Bărbosu took a moment to thank everyone because of the support and love.

Besides that, Chiles said in the post-event interview that she does not know what to say while saying that she just wants to cheer for herself and her teammate. Chiles hinted at a big “announcement” about her future on Tuesday, Aug. 6, after competing in Paris. According to Olympics.com, this may involve returning to her alma mater, UCLA, and rejoining their gymnastics team. So, what do you think? Will this score-change thing affect the upcoming events at the Paris Olympics? Let us know in the comments!