PARIS — Jordan Chiles is a rarity in Olympic history: an athlete forced to return their medal for reasons other than a doping violation.
The Team USA gymnast originally finished fifth in the floor exercise Monday, but an appeal by her coach saw her upgraded to bronze. On Sunday, the International Olympic Committee said that the appeal shouldn’t have been allowed, meaning she will have to return her third-place prize.
Throughout history, dozens of athletes have been forced to return their accolades, usually because they have failed a doping test after stepping off the podium.
The IOC asks athletes’ sporting committees “for their support in obtaining the return of the medals or diplomas,” the group told NBC News in an email. “In many cases, this request leads to the return of the medals and diplomas. This holds true for medal reallocations of the past as well as recent years.”
Indeed, Jamaican superstar Usain Bolt himself quickly — albeit begrudgingly — returned his 4×100-meter relay gold after teammate Nesta Carter’s doping violation led to the team’s disqualification nine years after the 2008 race.
“I’m not happy about it, but it’s just one of those things that happen in life,” he said at the time.
It doesn’t always happen like that, of course. In 2017, the Russian Olympic Committee said that none of the 18 athletes stripped of their medals because of doping violations had returned the physical awards. Committee President Alexander Zhukov said it was “not an easy process.”
The competitors who get bumped up onto the podium used to receive their belated prizes with little fanfare. But these days the IOC usually puts on a big show for those robbed of their big moment.
Paris 2024, for example, saw American figure skater Karen Chen accept her belated gold from Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics after Russia’s Kamila Valieva failed a doping test.
After Chiles’ bronze bumped Romanian gymnast Ana Bărbosu off the podium, the country’s Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said he’d refuse to attend the closing ceremony in protest.
This postceremony wrangling is hardly a new phenomenon.
As far back as 1904, at the St. Louis Olympics, American boxer Jack Eagan took silver in lightweight boxing and bronze in the welterweight competition. However, officials discovered that he was fighting under an assumed name, something not uncommon at the time but against the rules of the Amateur Athletic Union, according to the authoritative website Sports Reference. And Eagan, real name Frank Floyd, was forced to return his prizes.
In 2008, Olympic officials didn’t need to ask for Ara Abrahamian’s medal back; he dropped it on the floor.
The Swedish Greco-Roman wrestler had won bronze at the Beijing Games but, unhappy with a refereeing call in a previous round that cost him a shot at gold, he put his medal on the ground and walked off, according to news reports from The Associated Press and others from the time.
The IOC judged that his actions were “not in the Olympic spirit of respect for his fellow athletes” and the medal was revoked. No other athlete received it, as the incident did not relate to the competition itself, so the category remains blank in the history books.
Likewise, in 1992, Ibragim Samadov was competing for the “Unified Team,” which represented most of the recently fragmented Soviet Union, when he lost out on gold on a technicality based on his body weight. He refused to accept his bronze around his neck, instead putting out his hand to receive it before dropping it and walking away. He was stripped of the prize and, like Abrahamian, banned for life by the Olympics.
Chiles learned her fate in a matter of days, but sometimes these reversals take years.
At Sydney in 2000, Chinese gymnast Dong Fangxiao helped her team win bronze in the team competition. But an investigation 10 years later found that Dong had falsified her age in order to meet the Olympic requirements. She was found to have been 14, two years too young, and her medal was rescinded.
That shows just how protracted and litigious these matters can be. The Chiles case promises to be no different. After the IOC’s ruling, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee pushed back a few hours later and said it would be filing an appeal of its own.
“We firmly believe that Jordan rightfully earned the bronze medal, and there were critical errors in both the initial scoring by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and the subsequent CAS appeal process that need to be addressed,” it said in a statement.
“Given these circumstances, we are committed to pursuing an appeal to help Jordan Chiles receive the recognition she deserves,” the U.S. committee said. “We remain dedicated to supporting her as an Olympic champion and will continue to work diligently to resolve this matter swiftly and fairly.”
Following the back-and-forth over Chiles’ placement, outrage simmered online, and the athlete said she’d take a break from social media for her mental health.
Aly Raisman, a six-time Olympic medalist, had a similar situation during the 2012 Olympics where she initially placed fourth on the balance beam, but a judge review of her routine raised her score to third— beating out Romanian athlete Cătălina Ponor.
She said on Monday’s “TODAY” show: “I’m just so gutted for Jordan … I think it’s so unfair. It’s so cruel and I don’t think that Jordan should have to give her medal back. The IOC has given more than one medal before and I think that they should do that now.”
“The judges did make a mistake. They put the inquiry in, the judges accepted it, which meant that they felt that it was under that minute,” Raisman added, calling for “a lot more transparency” in how these organizations handle their rulings going forward.
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