LAUSANNE, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gibson Dunn, along with its co-counsel Homburger AG, announced today that its client, two-time U.S. Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles, has filed an appeal in the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland to overturn a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that stripped her of her bronze medal in the women’s gymnastics floor event following the 2024 Olympic Games.
Today’s appeal is a continuation of Chiles’s pursuit of justice for the bronze medal. Chiles asks the Supreme Court to find that the CAS decision was procedurally deficient for two reasons. First, CAS violated Chiles’s fundamental “right to be heard” by refusing to consider the video evidence that showed her inquiry was submitted on time—in direct contradiction to the findings in CAS’s decision. Second, the entire CAS proceeding was unfair because Chiles was not properly informed that Hamid G. Gharavi, the President of the CAS panel that revoked Chiles’s bronze medal and awarded it instead to a Romanian gymnast, had a serious conflict of interest: Mr. Gharavi has acted as counsel for Romania for almost a decade and was actively representing Romania at the time of the CAS arbitration. Given these undeniable deficiencies, Chiles asks the Federal Supreme Court to reinstate the score that she rightfully earned at the floor event final.
The CAS decision lowered Chiles’s score for the women’s floor event final from 13.766 to 13.666—effectively demoting Chiles from third place to fifth place. The only stated basis for the ruling by CAS was its incorrect assertion that there was “no dispute” that Chiles’s coach had been four seconds too late in making an inquiry to correct Chiles’s score—even though the judges at the women’s floor finals had accepted and approved that inquiry. But Chiles directly and repeatedly disputed that issue at the arbitration hearing. Subsequent to the hearing, Chiles even submitted video footage which unequivocally proves that the inquiry was submitted on time. Further, the entire CAS arbitration process was procedurally defective: Chiles was not given proper notice of the hearing and did not receive the necessary time and opportunity to prepare any defense—she was informed of the hearing only a few hours before it began. From start to finish, the procedures leading to the CAS panel’s decision were fundamentally unfair, and it is no surprise that they resulted in an unjust decision.
Today’s appeal filing was supported by the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), which filed a letter in support of Chiles’s appeal. Chiles is grateful for the support that the USOPC has provided to her in connection with her appeal. Shortly after this appeal, Chiles will file an additional petition seeking additional and alternative relief from the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. Both briefs could result in a retrial of this matter before CAS in order to allow her—for the first time—to prepare a defense and present evidence, including the video footage showing that her coach’s scoring inquiry was submitted on time.
This appeal is about much more than the bronze medal. Chiles is pursuing her case to encourage the entire Olympic community to take steps to ensure that future Olympians do not face a similar ordeal. Chiles believes in competing fairly and with integrity and holding these organizations to the standards and rules that were established to ensure fairness. “Jordan Chiles’ appeals present the international community with an easy legal question—will everyone stand by while an Olympic athlete who has done only the right thing is stripped of her medal because of fundamental unfairness in an ad-hoc arbitration process? The answer to that question should be no. Every part of the Olympics, including the arbitration process, should stand for fair play,” said Maurice M. Suh, counsel for Chiles.
Chiles has an incredible support team and is grateful for the unwavering support of her family, teammates, coaches, fans and USOPC as she pursues her case to the fullest extent.
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Link to Jordan Chiles’ Appeal Before the Swiss Supreme Court (German Language)