Scoring inquiry errors might have cost Simone Biles another Olympic gold medal

The floor exercise final at the Paris Olympics was even more screwed up than already known.

Video submitted Monday as part of Jordan Chiles’ appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal indicates a scoring inquiry for Simone Biles’ routine in the floor final was never registered, likely costing the Olympic champion another gold medal. Biles won the silver medal, finishing just 0.033 points behind Rebeca Andrade of Brazil.

“Honestly not a big deal for me, Rebeca had a better floor anyways,” Biles said Tuesday, adding a hand-heart emoji, after someone on Twitter pointed out issues with the inquiries for both Biles and Jordan Chiles.

“Upsetting how it wasn’t processed but I’m not mad at the results.”
Biles’s 14.133 in the floor final included a 6.9 for difficulty. Had she gotten full credit for her split leap, however, it would have given her an additional 0.10 in difficulty and a 14.233. That would have put her ahead of Andrade, who scored a 14.166.

But in the video submitted with Chiles’ appeal, Biles asks coach Cecile Landi, “Is he asking?” Landi replies, “He said he did.” After Laurent Landi, Landi’s husband and co-coach, says several things in French, Cecile Landi turns to Biles and says, “They didn’t send it,” and raises her arms in a gesture of helplessness.

Landi then asks her husband, “What about Jordan? You want to try?”

The video was provided to Chiles by director Katie Walsh and production company Religion of Sports, who received special permission to film in Bercy Arena as part of Biles’ latest documentary project, “Simone Biles: Rising.” The first two episodes of the docuseries were released on Netflix prior to the 2024 Paris Olympics and two more are still to come later this year.

Landi did submit an inquiry for Chiles, saying Chiles did not get full credit for her split leap. A review panel agreed, increasing Chiles’ score by 0.10 points and giving her the bronze medal ahead of Romania’s Ana Barbosu.

Romania appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, claiming Chiles’ scoring inquiry was not made in time. CAS agreed, citing data from Omega showing the inquiry was registered four seconds too late, and ordered the results of the floor final to be changed. As a result, Chiles was stripped of her bronze medal on the final day of the Paris Olympics.

But the rules say Chiles had 60 seconds to make a verbal inquiry, not that the inquiry had to be registered within 60 seconds. During the CAS hearing last month, the FIG acknowledged there were no mechanisms in place to record when verbal inquiries were received.

In the time-stamped video, however, Landi clearly says, “Inquiry for Jordan,” twice before the 60 seconds have elapsed.

That Chiles was wrongly denied the bronze medal seemed to bother Biles a lot more than her not having another gold medal.

“BUT JUSTICE FOR JORDAN,” the seven-time Olympic champion said in her Twitter post Tuesday, adding four emojis of a person speaking. “ya hear me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”