The relocation of the women’s floor exercise bronze medal from Jordan Chiles to Romania’s Ana Bǎrbosu has been the big story this Sunday morning.
It seemingly brings to an end confusion about the ending of the event on Monday.
Immediately after the competition finished with Chiles’ routine, Bărbosu thought she had won the bronze medal after posting a score of 13.700. Chiles had initially posted a score of 13.666 but her coaches successfully challenged the difficulty score which added 0.1 to her score and moved her up to third, behind gold medalist Rebeca Andrade and American Simone Biles.
After the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) had ruled on Saturday that the initial inquiry made by the USA over Chiles’ score in Monday’s gymnastics floor exercise final was filed after the one-minute deadline, the Romanian Gymnastic Federation (RGF) said, “With one eye we laugh, with one we cry.”
“Congratulations to both of our gymnasts for the special result obtained at the Olympic Games in Paris!” RGF lawyer Sabin Gherdan said in a statement.
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu had earlier said he refused to attend the Olympics closing ceremony in protest over the women’s floor exercise final.
Ciolacu said in a statement on Wednesday that Bǎrbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea were treated “in an absolutely dishonorable way” by the judges in the floor final. Bǎrbosu had missed out on a medal in surprising fashion while Maneca-Voinea was given a .1 point penalty for leaving the floor exercise mat, though it did not appear she actually stepped out of bounds.
“It is unacceptable that, in a competition of this magnitude, which promotes values such as respect, understanding and excellence, a girl who had honestly won her medal should be brutally deprived of the result of her work of four years! I couldn’t look at her tears and accept with serenity that such a thing is perfectly normal!”
He added, “And the fact that hundreds of millions of viewers from all over the world were, like us Romanians, effectively shocked by this terrible scene, shows that somewhere, in the system of organizing this competition, something is wrong.”