US gymnast Jordan Chiles may be get back her Olympic bronze medal.
Chiles lost out the medal to Romanian gymnast Ana Barbosu at the 2024 Paris Olympics sparking a dispute which Barbosu eventually won.
But on Thursday, Switzerland’s supreme court said its judges had sent the “highly exceptional circumstances” of the bronze medal awarded in the women’s floor exercise back to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to examine new evidence.
The ruling suggested Chiles could regain the bronze medal she originally got in Paris after challenging her judged score.
Her third place was overturned within days on appeal by the Romania team to the CAS’ Olympic court in Paris and the medal was awarded in Bucharest the next week to Barbosu.
There was no immediate reaction from Barbosu to the development.
“In the highly exceptional circumstances of the case in question,” the Swiss Federal Tribunal said “it considers that there is a likelihood for the audio-visual recording of the final on Aug. 5, 2024 to lead to a modification of the contested award in favor of the applicant (Chiles).”
“We are delighted that the Swiss Federal Supreme Court has righted a wrong and given Jordan the chance she deserves to reclaim her bronze medal,” Maurice M. Suh, a member f the legal team representing Chiles, said in a statement.
“As the Court recognized, there is ‘conclusive’ video evidence that Jordan was the rightful winner of the bronze medal,” she said.
