Jordan Chiles and The Future of Sports Arbitration

Written by Gurtaran Johal.

The stripping of Jordan Chiles’ bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics will leave a substantial impact on the future of sports arbitration.

During the 2024 Paris Olympics, Jordan Chiles competed in the Gymnastics Floor Final. Initially, she received a total score of 13.666, which put her in fifth place. However, after Chiles’ coach, Cecile Landi, submitted an inquiry, contending that the judges did not accurately score her routine’s difficulty level, her score increased to 13.766. This automatically propelled her into third place, garnering her the bronze medal. With Rebeca Andrade and Simone Biles in first and second place, respectively, this score change also led to the first all-Black podium in men’s or women’s gymnastics in Olympics history.

However, Chiles’ moment of triumph abruptly ended when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”), an international body that allows athletes to settle disputes through binding arbitration, ruled only a few days later that Landi submitted the inquiry four seconds after the one-minute deadline, rendering the inquiry futile.

Despite USA Gymnastics filing an appeal and providing video evidence that the inquiry was made within the one-minute deadline, the CAS stated that “their rules do not allow for an arbitral award to be reconsidered even when conclusive new evidence is presented.” As a result, the decision was final and binding, per Article 21 of the CAS’s Arbitration Rules for the Olympic Games.

However, the CAS left the possibility of reviewing the decision open, stating, “If new evidence (i.e. objectively unknown at the time of the CAS hearing) appears after the issuance of the CAS decision, it would be possible to ask the Swiss Federal Tribunal to order that the case be reopened.” Thus, in order to appeal, the evidence must be objectively unknown and not simply evidence that failed to be initially introduced before the tribunal. All appeals are heard by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland (“Court”).

As a result, Chiles and her attorneys, in conjunction with USA Gymnastics, submitted an additional appeal to the Court to overturn the CAS decision. In her appeal, Chiles argues that the CAS not only violated her “right to be heard,” but the process was also procedurally unfair since Hamid G. Gharavi, the President of the CAS arbitration panel that overturned Chiles’ score, served as legal counsel to Romania in other proceedings, demonstrating a serious conflict of interest.

It is unclear how the Court will rule on this issue. USA Gymnastics has to prove that it was unaware of the existence of video evidence during the arbitration proceedings. Consequently, they have to show that it was not possible to find the evidence at that time.

Chiles’ and USA Gymnastics’ strongest argument will be that they were notified of the proceedings far too late. While the Romanian Gymnastics Federation (“FRG”) filed its challenge on August 6, 2024, Chiles and USA Gymnastics were not properly notified until August 9, 2024 at 9:02 AM CET. Chiles and USA Gymnastics consequently filed their comments at 7:57 PM CET, less than 12 hours after the initial notification. Given the failure to provide proper notice, Chiles’ attorneys may be able to prove that it was impossible to know the whole universe of evidence available during the arbitration proceedings.

Arguably, it will be difficult to prove that it was impossible to find evidence of a time-stamped video proving that the inquiry was made within the one-minute deadline. Despite the short notice, there are presumably only so many official video feeds documenting the behind-the-scenes of the Gymnastics Floor Final. However, this may also cut in favor of Chiles, given that these behind-the-scenes video feeds are more challenging to locate.

Ultimately, Chiles is suffering the consequences of a mistake that the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (“FIG”) made. FIG oversees and governs gymnastics, setting forth the regulations guiding the sport. The one-minute deadline for submitting an inquiry comes from Article 8.5 of FIG’s Technical Regulations. Rather than awarding a bronze medal to both Ana Barbosu, the Romanian gymnast who ultimately took third place, and Jordan Chiles, FIG officials reallocated the medal solely to Barbosu.

This dispute has left Chiles in an unimaginable position. She stated that “the biggest thing that was taken from me was…the recognition of who I was. Not just my sport…but the person I am.” In her first TV interview since the Paris Olympics, Chiles stated, “As my grandpa would always say, he’d just tell me, ‘Everything happens for a reason. There’s reasons on why you’re the person you are. There’s reasons on why people look up to you.” Chiles has maintained that her and her coach “followed the rules” and did everything right, yet she still lost the bronze medal.

This case will have a substantial impact on the future of sports arbitration, especially since the ramifications of a sports arbitration decision are always high. Specifically, it creates a consequential trade-off. While arbitration creates a more efficient process, appeal rights are highly limited, if not completely unavailable to the parties involved. This trade-off may ultimately be a detriment, rather than a benefit, to athletes.

Other, more specific, concerns surround the CAS, which has, for years, been criticized for its lack of impartiality, independence, and transparency. While the CAS has undergone some reforms, such as being placed under the oversight of the International Council of Arbitration for Sport (“ICAS”) and changing its process for appointing arbitrators, problems, particularly around transparency, persist. The outcome of Chiles’ highly publicized case may be the driving factor for possible future reforms.