The Romanian women’s artistic gymnastics team experienced a series of lows during the floor exercise final of the 2024 Paris Olympics, which kicked off the events that left Jordan Chiles‘ bronze medal in jeopardy.
During the Monday, August 5, comPetition, Team Romania issued a score inquiry regarding Sabrina Maneca-Voinea’s performance. Each team can ask the judging panel to look into an athlete’s score, essentially rescoring the level of difficulty of a certain move. Maneca-Voinea’s challenge was denied. After the score remained unchanged, Simone Biles, Maneca-Voinea’s teaMMAte Ana Barbosu and Chiles performed their own routines. All three women placed higher than Maneca-Voinea.
Rebeca Andrade, Biles, 27, and Barbosu, 18, took home gold, silver and bronze, respectively. As Barbosu celebrated on the mat with her country’s flag, news broke that Team USA filed an inquiry into the difficulty of one of Chiles’ leaps. The judges ultimately accepted the consideration, bumping her up from fifth to third.
Barbosu was heartbroken that she narrowly missed a medal opportunity.
“Thank you to everyone who encouraged me before, during, and after the competition,” Barbosu wrote via Instagram Story on Monday before reposting a statement from retired gymnast Sandra Izbasa-Bianca. “‘I hear more vividly than ever the words that the coaches repeated to us almost daily in the training room. ‘You, as Romanians, must be more than perfect in order not to leave room for interpretations!’ And here, it proves itself once again! Girls, head up and back straight! Keep believing in your dreams! Go Romania!’”
Team Romania have spent the interim reexamining their athletes’ floor scores. The Romanian Olympic Committee’s president, Mihai Covaliu, sent a letter of protest to the Gymnastics Federation to contest the result after Maneca-Voinea, 17, decided to quit the sport. In a statement shared via Facebook, it was revealed that Maneca-Voinea made a “public declaration to give up practicing this sport as a result of today’s decision.”
Covaliu’s statement added: “The punctual evaluation modules agree and refuse the integral proposition of motive since the regulation involves grave prejudices in the imagination of international sport, which has a particular impact on sport, which risks to cause serious harm to the international Sports imagination. The Sports media of international level, publicly declaring their renunciation of sportive practice, can follow a decision of mandatory moral factors for the analysis, fundamental and communication decision of a final decision.”
Maneca-Voinea’s mother, Camelia Voinea, also thinks her daughter was unfairly judged.
“Sabrina did not leave the mat for any acrobatic line, they are all here, she deserves a medal,” Voinea, herself a silver medalist, wrote via Facebook in Romanian. “We have interrupted gymnastics here today, no one is fighting for our rights! We love all of you infinitely who have supported us ❤️. That’s all I could take!”
Former Olympians have weighed in on the side of the Romanian gymnasts, urging a thorough reconsideration of the scores.
“We have to clarify for Sabrina, because this child worked very hard,” Romanian gymnastics legend Nadia Comăneci told Euronews Romania. “For me, the biggest dileMMA is Sabrina Voinea because everyone didn’t know what was happening with the one-tenth deduction. It is a deduction in neutral, minus a tenth that is usually given when you are off the carPet.”
Comăneci, 62, added, “I looked at the video now, the corners, the video that NBC sent. They didn’t understand why that deduction was either. I asked the head umpire and she said she put the heel on. I haven’t seen any pictures of [her] putting the heel on [out of bounds].”
The prime minister of Romania, Marcel Ciolacu, will also boycott the Paris Olympics’ closing ceremony in protest.
“I decided not to attend the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, following the Scandalous situation in the gymnastics, where our athletes were treated in an absolutely dishonorable manner,” Ciolacu, 56, said in a social media statement. “To withdraw a medal earned for honest work on the basis of an appeal … is totally unacceptable!”
Ciolacu continued, “[Ana and Sabrina,] you have with you an entire nation for which your work and tears are more precious than any medal, no matter what precious metal they are from.”
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Amid the drama, Chiles’ coach Cecile Canqueteau-Landi clapped back at accusations that she and Team USA’s judges cheated to secure Chiles’ bronze win. “I shouldn’t have to explain but I will ONCE,” she commented on her Tuesday, August 6, Instagram post. “Jordan’s highest possible SV on floor is a 5.9- At quals and team finals she received a 5.8 and we didn’t question it because we saw that not all elements were completed. During floor finals, we thought I was better and being placed 5th with nothing to lose, I sent the inquiry so I wouldn’t regret not asking. I didn’t think it would be accepted and at my surprise it was.”
Canqueteau-Landi, 44, went on to state that Chiles won her medal fair and square and “didn’t steal anything from anyone.” She added: “I simply did my job and fought for my athlete. Do I feel bad for the Romanian athlete? Of course I do! It was so sad and heartbreaking to see but it is the sport! You don’t have to like it but you do have to respect the outcome and more importantly respect Jordan and not drag her down because you disagree. She EARNED that bronze medal, her 1st individual Olympic medal and I couldn’t be more proud and excited!”
On Saturday, August 10, the Court for Arbitration of Sport (CAS) ruled that Team Romania’s inquiry into the validity of the American request was filed four seconds past the allotted deadline. That reverted Chiles score back to her initial 13.666. The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) confirmed that Chiles was in fifth place following the ruling, and the International Olympic Committee confirmed one day later that they planned to “reallocate” Chiles’ medal to Barbosu based on the CAS findings.
