Gymnast Jordan Chiles Appeals Olympic Bronze Medal to Swiss Court : NPR

US gymnast Jordan Chiles, whose Olympic bronze medal was revoked by an arbitration court days after the floor exercise final in Paris, has appealed her case to Switzerland's highest federal court.

It was one of the most dramatic turn of events at a Summer Olympics: A viral and historic medal ceremony — marking the first time three Black women stood on the same medal podium in an Olympic gymnastics event — was annulled days later when an arbitration court determined that a last-minute check, which would have elevated Chile’s score to third place, was filed seconds late.

While US gymnastics officials said they could provide video evidence that “conclusively” showed the investigation was filed on time, the Court of Arbitration for Sport declined to revisit the case. Olympic officials announced they would “reallocate” the bronze medal to Romania's Ana Barbosu, who was awarded the medal at a ceremony in Bucharest last month.

Now, Chiles has requested the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland to order CAS to reevaluate the case.

“Jordan Chiles' appeal poses a simple legal question for the international community – will everyone stand idly by when an Olympic athlete who has done just the right thing is stripped of his medal due to fundamental unfairness in an ad hoc arbitration process? The answer to that question must be no,” Chiles' legal counsel Maurice M. Suh said in a statement. “Every part of the Olympics, including the arbitration process, must stand for fair play.”

The appeal asks that the CAS decision be overturned and the case reconsidered. His law firm said a rehearing would give Chiles the opportunity to prepare a defense and present evidence, “including video footage showing that his coach's scoring investigation was submitted in a timely manner.”

When her scores were first posted at the competition on August 5, it appeared that Chiles had finished fifth with a score of 13.666, slightly behind Barbosu, who scored 13.7. But Chiles' coach believed the judges had given her the wrong score and filed an investigation shortly after. The judges agreed, raising Chiles' score by a tenth of a point to 13.766.

In the days that followed, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation appealed to the Independent Court of Arbitration. The CAS panel determined that the check was filed four seconds late and revised Chile's score to 13.666. Gymnastics rules require the last gymnast of the competition to file a check within one minute.

The gymnast said Chiles was heartbroken. She faced racist abuse online as a result of the controversy. She said the incident made her feel like she was robbed of more than just her bronze medal. At the Forbes Summit last week“I followed the rules. My coach followed the rules. We did everything totally right,” she said. “I think they just took all of that away.”

In its appeal to the Swiss court, Chiles also asked that CAS remove arbitrator Hamid Gharawi from any future hearings. Gharawi, the presiding arbitrator of the Chiles hearing, is currently providing legal advice to Romania in other international proceedings, new York Times reported last month. (The court told the Times that Gharavi had disclosed the work and that no party had objected to his participation as chairman.)

“From start to finish, the processes leading up to the CAS panel's decision were fundamentally unfair, and it is no surprise that they resulted in an unjust judgment,” Gibson Dunn, the law firm representing Chiles in the appeal, said in a statement.