Olympic Gymnastics is always full of twists and turns, but Monday’s final will go down as one of the most shocking in the history of the sport.
Jordan Chiles won his first individual Olympic medal, a bronze, but at first it looked like he would finish on the podium. She originally placed fifth, but submitted a query to the judges and received a tenth for her final score.
Then she exploded in celebration.
A skill in her routine called Gogean, a split jump with 1.5 spins, was originally not credited by the judges. His score sheets are not made public, but the justification is usually related to insufficient rotation.
After analysis, Chiles got full credit for the jump and it was a difference in winning medals. Chiles later said he didn’t even know his coaches had filed the appeal on his behalf.
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When her new score appeared on the screen, she fell to the floor and began to cry. Her coach, Cecile Landi, also cried and helped the gymnast to her feet, the pair cheering so loudly that Chiles lost her voice.
“I have no words, but I am very proud of myself,” Chiles said hoarsely after the meeting. “So losing my voice means everything because it takes me a while to do it.”
Appealing a score is risky business, which often results in an even lower score than before. The gymnast’s federation must pay a fee and forward the inquiry to the judges immediately.
“You can go either way, up, down,” Chiles said. “I was the first to see it because I was looking at the screen.”
She quickly caught the attention of her coach and Simone Biles. “I was like, jumping up and down. They said, ‘What happened?’ And then I showed them… I honestly didn’t expect that,” Chiles said.
“I’m proud of each and every one of these girls, and especially myself,” she added. She won a gold medal with her American teammates in Tuesday’s team final, as well as a team silver medal in Tokyo. A bronze completes her Olympic ensemble.
Chiles had some shaky landings throughout her Beyoncé-themed routine, losing a few tenths in execution, but performed strongly overall.
“I was so nervous I didn’t know what to do,” Chiles said. “After my first pass, all I thought was, ‘Jordan, keep your feet on the ground, please, that’s all I ask.'”
In the end, she overcame two Romanian gymnasts, Sabrina Voinea and Ana Barbosu, and finished third with 13.766. Rebeca Andrade, from Brazil, took gold and Biles, Chiles’ teammate and training partner, took silver.
It was the first Olympic gymnastics podium made up of three black gymnasts.
Upon receiving the medals, Chiles and Biles bowed to Andrade to show their admiration.
“Why don’t we give you flowers?” Chiles said of the gesture. “Not only did she give Simone flowers, but many of us in the United States gave our flowers as well.
Voinea and Barbosu both scored 13.700 points in their floor routines, but until Chiles’ appeal, Barbosu maintained the bronze medal position due to her superior execution score. While the sudden turnaround was a jubilant surprise for Chiles, it was a painful loss for Barbosu, who thought he had won his first Olympic medal.
The dramatic investigation echoes Aly Raisman’s appeal at the 2012 London Olympics, where she won bronze on beam after disputing her score.
Raisman, like Chiles, was also the last to reach the Olympic final, making the time needed to file an appeal particularly intense and the result more dramatic.
Another Romanian, Catalina Ponor, lost bronze to Raisman in London.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
