Ana Barbosu responded after the International Olympic Committee accepted her court appeal over Jordan Chiles’ floor exercise score and said the bronze medal would go to the Romanian gymnast instead. Ana Barbosu is speaking out after the International Olympic Committee announced that she would be awarded the bronze medal that Jordan Chiles received at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The Romanian first-time Olympian shared an empathetic message to the U.S. gymnast as well as to her teammate Sabrina Maneca-Voinea after the IOC released its decision Aug. 11—hours before the Games’ Closing Ceremony—following a court ruling that was made in response to an appeal by both Romanian athletes and the Romanian Gymnastics Federation.
“Sabrina, Jordan, my thoughts are with you,” Barbosu, 18, wrote in English on her Instagram Stories. “I know what you are feeling, because I’ve been through the same. But I know you’ll come back stronger. I hope from deep [in] my heart that at the next Olympics, all three of us will share [the] same podium. This is my true dream!”
On Aug. 10, the Court of Arbitration for Sport invalidated an inquiry Chiles’ coach had submitted during the Aug. 5 gymnastics floor exercise final that led to the athlete’s score to be raised by 0.1 of a point and for her to be boosted from fifth to third place to win her first individual Olympic medal.
Chiles’ floor exercise final score revision came just as Barbosu was getting ready to celebrate making the podium. Her reaction to the change that denied her her first Olympic medal—a look of devastation as she let go on the large Romanian flag she previously held and put both hands below her heart— was caught on camera and went viral.
The shakeup stirred controversy in Romania—birthplace of legendary retired Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci—and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said in Romanian on Facebook Aug. 6 he would snub the Paris Olympics Closing Ceremony “following the scandalous situation in the gymnastics, where our athletes were treated in an absolutely dishonorable manner.”
