Speaker 1: Monday, August twelve, Olympic Games are officially over because we
Speaker 1: still don't know who won bronze in women's floor exercise.
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
Speaker 3: It was exactly seven days ago that that floor exercise happened.
Speaker 3: And the drama continues and tm USA is fighting back,
Speaker 3: not quite ready to FedEx Jordan Chiles bronze medal back
Speaker 3: to the IOC and says it has submitted video evidence
Speaker 3: that irrefutably shows that the bronze belongs to Chiles.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to this episode of Amy and TJ as
Speaker 1: we continue our Olympics coverage, and this has become the story.
Speaker 1: There have been a couple of stories the boxers, the
Speaker 1: gender controversy, I think is one of the lasting stories Robes.
Speaker 1: But now this story the Olympics is over, and this
Speaker 1: story continues and doesn't necessarily look like it's going to
Speaker 1: end anytime soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's remarkable and honestly it's I feel
Speaker 3: like it's shameful at this point because this is not
Speaker 3: in the spirit of the Olympics. But I love the
Speaker 3: TMUSA is fighting back Gymnastics TMUSA Gymnastics calling bs on
Speaker 3: the court decision that said Jordan Chiles did not win
Speaker 3: her bronze medal, and they say they have the evidence
Speaker 3: to back it up.
Speaker 1: It seems weird to get you caught up because a
Speaker 1: lot of you all and everybody seems to be following.
Speaker 1: But the quick, very quick recap. Jordan Chiles placed fifth
Speaker 1: in the floor exercise. She made an inquiry into her score.
Speaker 1: The score was adjusted up, put her in thirst. She
Speaker 1: got the bronze. Romania protested. A court ruled over the
Speaker 1: weekend that Jordan did not win that bronze medal because
Speaker 1: that inquiry came four seconds after the one minute deadline.
Speaker 1: Get it, got it good? You should all be caught
Speaker 1: up now. But again, a lot of you all have
Speaker 1: been following it, that's right.
Speaker 3: And so the court that made that ruling said, hey,
Speaker 3: we're not going to get involved in the medals. That
Speaker 3: is the International Olympic Committee's decision. And so the IOC
Speaker 3: made a decision Sunday saying that Jordan Chiles needs to
Speaker 3: return her bronze medal and that it would be reallocated
Speaker 3: to the Romanian gymnast who is now officially the third
Speaker 3: place winner. But late yesterday USA Gymnastics released a statement
Speaker 3: saying that it had quote formally submitted a letter and
Speaker 3: video evidence to the Court of Arbitration for Sport conclusively
Speaker 3: establishing that head coach the cil Landy's request to file
Speaker 3: an inquiry was submitted forty seven seconds after publishing the score,
Speaker 3: well within the one minute deadline required by the rule,
Speaker 3: and in fact they say that she made another inquiry
Speaker 3: fifty five seconds, so there were two moments where they
Speaker 3: asked for the judges to look at the score, specifically
Speaker 3: her degree of difficulty score, well within the one minute.
Speaker 1: Again, folks, we're saying they have I don't know how
Speaker 1: you refute time stamped video evidence, but they're saying not
Speaker 1: just one, but two. So they have an inquiry and
Speaker 1: a backup inquiry. They say both took place before that
Speaker 1: one minute deadline. They say they did not have this
Speaker 1: video evidence before the court ruling. They would have submitted it,
Speaker 1: but they didn't have it. But they also would not
Speaker 1: at this point go into further detail about the video
Speaker 1: where it came from, citing confidentiality. So that is where
Speaker 1: we are. I don't know what the rule is necessarily for.
Speaker 1: I guess you can always appeal and fight back if
Speaker 1: the court made a ruling already about the one minute
Speaker 1: and four seconds. Where was their evidence? They didn't just
Speaker 1: take Romania's word for it, I'm sure so they had.
Speaker 1: There has to be something else out there that the
Speaker 1: court based their ruling on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's so interesting because we were asking that
Speaker 3: question yesterday. Where did this minute and four seconds come from?
Speaker 3: Who was supposed to be timing it? There were omega
Speaker 3: clocks everywhere, yet nowhere did I see a countdown or
Speaker 3: have I ever even heard of a countdown after the
Speaker 3: last gymnasts routine, because typically you don't even really need
Speaker 3: a countdown clock if it was any other gymnast in
Speaker 3: any other part of this rotation.
Speaker 2: Basically, you have the time.
Speaker 3: A coach or a gymnast or an athlete has the
Speaker 3: time from when the score is posted until the next
Speaker 3: gymnast starts their routine. But when you're the last gymnast,
Speaker 3: as Childs was to perform, you have exactly one minute.
Speaker 1: So this would be a non issue. If she went second, third, fourth, fifth,
Speaker 1: or sixth in the rotation, there is no clock. If
Speaker 1: the next person would have started, your time is up, essentially,
Speaker 1: so what do you do? We have a seventeen second difference. Now,
Speaker 1: what are we going to do to make up the
Speaker 1: difference between forty seven seconds that the US said that
Speaker 1: they took to submit an inquiry and a minute and
Speaker 1: four seconds. It feels like a we've all been in
Speaker 1: negotiation before. I want to give you one thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: you want two thousand dollars, and we agree on fifteen hundred.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you do this. If we're at
Speaker 1: a minute four, you're at forty seven. How do you
Speaker 1: reconcile that seven a team minute difference? I cannot wait
Speaker 1: to see this video that they say as time stamped
Speaker 1: and proves it. So if that is now submitted, is
Speaker 1: that now better evidence? Is that going to be seen
Speaker 1: as more definitive proof? And now Jordan should get and
Speaker 1: then was Romaana, you're gonna come back and say something else?
Speaker 1: Is not an end insight to it? Right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean, look, if they can unequivocally, which they say,
Speaker 3: they can, prove that those inquiries plural came well before
Speaker 3: the minute was up, here's the deal. The judges said
Speaker 3: the inquiry was correct. They acknowledged that they made a
Speaker 3: mistake when calculating child's difficulty score.
Speaker 2: So if it's.
Speaker 3: Proven that the inquiry happened within that minute. It's it's
Speaker 3: it's irrefutable that Jordan's score a Jordan Child's score should
Speaker 3: be thirteen point seven to sixty six, which clearly puts
Speaker 3: her in third place.
Speaker 1: My issue is that you can't have both can't be true.
Speaker 1: You cannot have a proof that they submitted it in
Speaker 1: forty seven seconds and the court made a ruling based
Speaker 1: on proof that had happened in a minute four seconds.
Speaker 1: You can't prove those two things cannot be true. Something's
Speaker 1: got to cancel out. So I can imagine that the
Speaker 1: court really not have They've got to have something. Don't
Speaker 1: think Romania has to have some.
Speaker 2: You would think that they would have to it.
Speaker 1: Couldn't just take Romania's word for it. They have some.
Speaker 1: They got an answer for this, and you know it's
Speaker 1: not some doctored footage from the US. It's time stamp.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And also, you know, just a little deep dive I
Speaker 3: was trying to do on how they do time it
Speaker 3: what typically happens, and from what I've read, the judge
Speaker 3: or the person who accepts the inquiry is the one
Speaker 3: who was supposed to be timing it, so they accept it.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, the judge who was
Speaker 3: responsible for timing this or making sure it fell within
Speaker 3: a certain time period, that minute time period, clearly accepted
Speaker 3: the inquiry and then rule right there in the gymnasium.
Speaker 1: We read that the decision by the court. I don't
Speaker 1: remember them mentioning anything about h I don't think them
Speaker 1: they mentioned why the minute for how they know it
Speaker 1: was a minute four?
Speaker 2: They didn't.
Speaker 1: They didn't say based on something submitted, based on this
Speaker 1: or that, I don't know, and not even testimony from
Speaker 1: the judge who took the inquiry. I have no idea
Speaker 1: where they got the minute four from it.
Speaker 3: I know, And we wondered that yesterday and here we
Speaker 3: go now with apparently proof that that is not that
Speaker 3: is not in fact the case. And look, you know,
Speaker 3: just in terms of saying the headline that Chiles had
Speaker 3: to return her bronze medal and it was going to
Speaker 3: be reallocated to the Romanian gymnast I just.
Speaker 2: Think that that is.
Speaker 3: That is just so not in the spirit of the Olympics.
Speaker 3: If Jordan Chiles had been accused of doping or cheating,
Speaker 3: that would be to me, the only acceptable reason for
Speaker 3: removing a medal from an athlete who did nothing wrong.
Speaker 3: She did her routine, and then her coaches challenged the
Speaker 3: judges who admitted they didn't give her the correct difficulty score.
Speaker 2: To me, that's the end of story.
Speaker 1: The story is the timing. I have no idea, I
Speaker 1: really don't, But the story is the timing. If it
Speaker 1: came in after fine, that sucks. Give the other young
Speaker 1: lady a bronze medal and let's all move on. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. It's not that simple, but it's just
Speaker 1: simple time issue. Is it a minute or not?
Speaker 3: What do you think about giving them both the bronze
Speaker 3: sweet That is the op This would be done exactly.
Speaker 1: She could have done this days ago, exactly. We could
Speaker 1: go and I'm pretty sure Jordan would have been happy
Speaker 1: and the other young lady would have been happy, and
Speaker 1: everything would have been fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the Roumanians asked for that. They asked for
Speaker 3: a shared bronze medal. They didn't ask for the bronze
Speaker 3: medal to be taken from Chiles and be given to
Speaker 3: their athlete or athletes.
Speaker 2: They specifically asked.
Speaker 3: For that, And so I just I'm curious why that
Speaker 3: wasn't even considered an option in this case. It seems
Speaker 3: like that would be the thing that made the most sense.
Speaker 3: And the sad thing is, because of all this back
Speaker 3: and forth, you know, people tend to take sides and
Speaker 3: unfortunately have gotten incredibly cruel about it.
Speaker 2: So not I mean, we've talked about.
Speaker 3: How Jordan has been dealing with a lot of hateful
Speaker 3: comments online, racist comments online, according to her mother, so
Speaker 3: much so that she's removed herself from being in social media,
Speaker 3: which is incredibly sad. But I also was reading that
Speaker 3: Anna Barbosu, who is the Romanian gymnast, she actually wrote
Speaker 3: something on Instagram which I thought was important to share.
Speaker 3: She said, Sabrina, that was the other Romanian gymnast who
Speaker 3: tied with her Jordan. My thoughts are with you. I
Speaker 3: know what you were feeling because I've been through the same,
Speaker 3: but I know you'll come back stronger. And then she says,
Speaker 3: I hope from deep in my heart that at the
Speaker 3: next Olympics all three of us will share the same podium.
Speaker 3: This is my dream. So the athletes aren't fighting among themselves,
Speaker 3: and they're in the spirit of trying to do and
Speaker 3: be fair about all of this and still support one another.
Speaker 3: I don't understand why the rest of the world can't
Speaker 3: do the same.
Speaker 1: And to her credit, she did point some fingers back
Speaker 1: at the judges. The I on't say yes, I say adults,
Speaker 1: if you will, Some of these gymnastar young girls, but
Speaker 1: there are women here. But she said the situation would
Speaker 1: not have existed if the persons in charge had respected
Speaker 1: the regulation. Athletes are not to be blamed and the
Speaker 1: hate directed to us is painful. I wanted to end
Speaker 1: this edition of the Olympic Games Paris twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: and the spirit of Olympism, as she put it, the
Speaker 1: true value of the world. So now you actually have
Speaker 1: the athletes who are coming out and trying to calm
Speaker 1: a situation that the adults seem to be continuing to
Speaker 1: exacerbate with the back and forth. I look. I looked
Speaker 1: and looked, and spent a lot of time this morning
Speaker 1: trying to find something comparable to this. But when someone's
Speaker 1: asked it for metal back or stripped from a medal.
Speaker 1: In Olympic history, it's all been about doping or cheating
Speaker 1: in some way, circumventing the rules in some way. There's
Speaker 1: guys in the past who competed under not their real name,
Speaker 1: so they had their medals taken. There was somebody who
Speaker 1: on the equestrian team that they promoted to a lieutenant
Speaker 1: so he could be a gentleman and right things like that.
Speaker 1: Other than that, it's doping.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: The only thing, the only incident that I've heard anybody
Speaker 3: compare this to, is back in twenty twelve with Paul Ham,
Speaker 3: the US gymnasts who had won gold, and then the
Speaker 3: South Korean gymnast who found out or pretty much immediately
Speaker 3: announced they had gotten it wrong. It was a whole
Speaker 3: start value issue, kind of similar to what we're looking
Speaker 3: at with Jordan Childs. The difference in South Korea did
Speaker 3: not put in an inquiry at the time and only
Speaker 3: did it later. But still they asked for Paul Ham
Speaker 3: to return his gold medal, and it took several months
Speaker 3: of arbitration, but Paul Ham was allowed to keep his
Speaker 3: gold medal and they did not change the scores. But
Speaker 3: it was a cut and dry case in this sense
Speaker 3: that South Korea did not put in an inquiry anywhere
Speaker 3: near the amount of time, so it wasn't even an issue.
Speaker 3: This is the issue is the time. As we point out,
Speaker 3: and you know what, we have started to hear sports
Speaker 3: analysts athletes really point to the problem of what happened.
Speaker 3: If the judges at that event had done what they
Speaker 3: were supposed to do, they wouldn't have missed the degree
Speaker 3: of difficulty in Chiles's it was a split leap, and
Speaker 3: if that had happened, none of this would be happening.
Speaker 3: That is where it all went wrong.
Speaker 1: I give, I know it's the biggest stage in the
Speaker 1: eyes are on it. But if you go back and
Speaker 1: look at all how many competed in the floor exercise.
Speaker 2: Eight to take eight Yeah, in the finals.
Speaker 1: If you go through every routine, I bet they missed
Speaker 1: something in every routine.
Speaker 2: That's that's fair.
Speaker 1: I mean judges, and I'm gonna used to referees doing this.
Speaker 1: Referees miss calls, they just do. It's human. You've got
Speaker 1: a human being involved in something. Mistakes are possible. Some
Speaker 1: of that is kind of built in a ref's miss
Speaker 1: called oh you missed the file in the second quarter.
Speaker 1: Oh in the fourth quarter, you missed that, uh missed whatever?
Speaker 1: It just it happened. So it happened here. But it's
Speaker 1: a perfect storm that has been created now to where
Speaker 1: I don't know which just an adult would step up
Speaker 1: and deal with this and the kids, I say the kids,
Speaker 1: but the young women are the ones who are stepping up,
Speaker 1: who are trying to call in the situation. I just
Speaker 1: it just is I don't understand why she can't keep
Speaker 1: the metal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean I was reading the final line.
Speaker 3: The Sports Illustrated has a great article out and they
Speaker 3: basically ended with saying that both gymnasts should get the bronze,
Speaker 3: and the people who were entrusted with running this competition
Speaker 3: are the ones who screwed up. And their point is
Speaker 3: the least they can do now is not make it worse.
Speaker 3: And how you don't make it worse is by giving
Speaker 3: both of those young women bronze medals.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know what rule they have out there
Speaker 1: that prevents this. They haven't presented anything that says we
Speaker 1: can't do this. It just isn't out there. And this
Speaker 1: metal reallocation, I don't know if the oh yeah, at
Speaker 1: this point they're saying the metal reallocation. They've contacted both
Speaker 1: the Olympic committees, Romania and the US trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how to reallocate the medals, and this is something
Speaker 1: they've done where you get the option now to have
Speaker 1: a ceremony somewhere or come back and do it at
Speaker 1: the next Olympics. And they actually had reallocation ceremonies this
Speaker 1: year that you missed. It was on Friday. But a
Speaker 1: lot of athletes from ten twenty plus years ago who
Speaker 1: finished with bronze or silver or not a metal at all,
Speaker 1: and then some doping something comes up, somebody loses the medal,
Speaker 1: they get elevated and moved up, and then they get
Speaker 1: their meddle ten twelve plus years later. But all of
Speaker 1: those situations, that's all I had to do with doping.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was looking at that too. They're all involving
Speaker 3: doping and this is I feels unprecedented and it's not over,
Speaker 3: and you know, we can only hope that they do
Speaker 3: the right thing. And I just I also hope that
Speaker 3: just everyone out there can calm down and stop pointing
Speaker 3: fingers at the athletes. I think that's the biggest that's
Speaker 3: the saddest part of this, that these athletes world class,
Speaker 3: the best of the best, who gave their heart and
Speaker 3: soul and put it all on the line. Are now
Speaker 3: dealing with hateful you know, vitriol which people might not think, Oh,
Speaker 3: just turn off for social media, and who cares?
Speaker 2: It affects people?
Speaker 3: Words matter, what people say has a huge impact. We
Speaker 3: know how that feels. You can try to rise above it.
Speaker 3: But they did nothing wrong and are so undeserving of
Speaker 3: this and are deserving of national pride and international recogn
Speaker 3: for what they've done. And I'm proud of how all
Speaker 3: of these girls have handled this.
Speaker 1: I didn't do a deep dive on the social media stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not on that lately, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: I have no idea watching what happened on TV with
Speaker 1: the floor exercise, why anybody could walk away being mad
Speaker 1: at either athlete. Neither one did a single thing.
Speaker 3: And they had genuine reactions, but there.
Speaker 1: Was nothing what critics, I don't when you talked about it,
Speaker 1: and I know it's been out there. Who's mad at
Speaker 1: George Giles? How can you be mad at George Giles?
Speaker 1: Or is it an America thing? Is it more so
Speaker 1: look at the Americans again? Kind of a thing? I
Speaker 1: think I haven't really.
Speaker 3: I think what it was was that horrific juxtaposition that
Speaker 3: was no fault of either gymnast where you had Anna
Speaker 3: the Romanian gymnast sobbing at the moment she realized after
Speaker 3: she had her flag draped around her that she wasn't
Speaker 3: going to get a bronze medal, and Jordan realizing she
Speaker 3: was going to get it, and her elation, and both
Speaker 3: of those are authentic, does deserving reactions to a very
Speaker 3: shocking change of events. So neither one of those women
Speaker 3: did anything wrong in their genuine reactions to the news
Speaker 3: and so, but people take offense to it and for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, And you can't explain or understand why people
Speaker 3: want to blame. I think there's just this need to
Speaker 3: have a bad guy and a good guy. Everyone wants
Speaker 3: the black and white, and it's just not the case
Speaker 3: in this situation at all.
Speaker 2: And you pointed this.
Speaker 3: Out one of the most incredible moments. I think some
Speaker 3: people would say it was the most iconic moment of
Speaker 3: the Games, when Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles A bowed
Speaker 3: to andrage Brazil's amazing Rebecca Andrage who did that incredible
Speaker 3: floor routine that would never have happened, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: just we're.
Speaker 1: Being told right now it didn't at this moment. We're
Speaker 1: told that moment did not happen. That historic moment of
Speaker 1: three black gymnasts for the first time being on the podium,
Speaker 1: all three black, never happened before. And we're told, actually,
Speaker 1: it did not happen des by what I saw, because
Speaker 1: Jordan Jiles didn't win bronze, is what we're being told
Speaker 1: currently until the court rules again, I don't know how
Speaker 1: that this is supposed to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we'll keep following it. I know everybody
Speaker 3: else is. And unfortunately, you know, this has been an
Speaker 3: incredible Olympics. I think NBC did, and we both have
Speaker 3: said this an incredible job. The access we had to
Speaker 3: events we had never been able to see before. I've
Speaker 3: never watched so much Olympic sports in my life, even
Speaker 3: having been to most of the most recent Olympics. So
Speaker 3: this was such a pleasure and a joy. But this
Speaker 3: is the shadow. This is unfortunately really taking away what
Speaker 3: was otherwise a remarkable Olympics.
Speaker 1: And why this matters. I know where the story of
Speaker 1: the Olympics is. Folks fighting over a bronze medal. Right,
Speaker 1: it seems not even a gold medal, but it's bronze.
Speaker 1: But it's important. Why it's important. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: the first, it could be the first medal in gymnastics
Speaker 1: for Romania in twenty years. This is a proud power
Speaker 1: house historically in gymnastics. But the Eric Kinnard, who is
Speaker 1: an American high jumper, a long jumper, I think he
Speaker 1: is a high high jumper, high jumper. He got a
Speaker 1: medal yesterday, excuse me, on Friday, got a gold medal.
Speaker 1: It was an upgrade from the silver medal he got
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. So we're talking twelve years ago. This
Speaker 1: dude got a silver at the Olympics in London. What
Speaker 1: turns out the person who finished with gold ends up
Speaker 1: getting it stripped because of doping, because of drug testing.
Speaker 1: So he gets his gold medal now, and he made
Speaker 1: the point that he probably lost out on millions of
Speaker 1: dollars silver to gold. Silver's great and people are proud,
Speaker 1: but there's nothing like walking back into your country with
Speaker 1: a gold medal around your neck. And so when you
Speaker 1: think about the young lady from Romania, it's more than
Speaker 1: just I got third or I want a medal. This
Speaker 1: is a matter of national pride and it's a matter
Speaker 1: of her livelihood possibly moving forward. So That's why it
Speaker 1: matters to get this right and get to get it
Speaker 1: right in the moment, because lives can be changed by
Speaker 1: what the IOC does and doesn't do.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, the difference between medaling and not is huge.
Speaker 3: From sponsorships, you know, forget the wheaties box. But just
Speaker 3: this is how these athletes make a living. They put
Speaker 3: their heart and soul, this is their work, this is
Speaker 3: their job, and it's not easy for them necessarily to
Speaker 3: always get paid. But if you're a medalist, that's a
Speaker 3: life changing experience financially where it allows you to keep
Speaker 3: doing your sport and encourages other people. It encourages a
Speaker 3: whole entire country, the young folks seeing someone who looks
Speaker 3: like them do something that incredible. It has a massive
Speaker 3: riple effect, to your point, a massiveble effect, not just
Speaker 3: for the athlete, for an entire nation.
Speaker 1: So we shall see this. This isn't the Olympics over,
Speaker 1: but this ain't We still got a medal to be awarded. Apparently,
Speaker 1: but as it's still a fish, at least sits Jordan
Speaker 1: Giles did not medal at these Olympics. However, there is
Speaker 1: I guess now robes a court battle over Bronze medal
Speaker 3: And we will be following it and we will bring
Speaker 3: you all the details, so thank you for listening as always,
Speaker 3: and we do have our final Tea from Perry episode
Speaker 3: coming up, so look for it