The prime minister of Romania said he won’t attend the Paris Olympics closing ceremony in protest of the gymnastics judges’ decision that allowed a gymnast from his country to be knocked from third place following the women’s floor exercise final.
U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles was awarded the bronze medal after appealing her score during the women’s floor final earlier this week. Before she made the appeal, two Romanian gymnasts, Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Voinea, were tied for third place, and Barbosu would have kept the bronze medal position.
Barbosu initially thought she had won a medal in the Aug. 5 floor final on the last day of gymnastics events. Chiles was the final competitor, and the initial score posted on the video board was lower than Barbosu’s, prompting the Romanian to grab her country’s flag and begin celebrating.
Moments later, it was announced that Chiles’s coaches had asked judges to review the difficulty component of her score. That led to a 0.1 boost, bumping Chiles to 13.766, or just ahead of Barbosu’s 13.700 score.
“At this point, we had nothing to lose, so I was like, ‘We’re just going to try,’” Team USA coach Cecile Landi told reporters of the review petition. “I honestly didn’t think it was going to happen, but when I heard her scream, I turned around and was like, ‘What?’”
Chiles told TeamUSA.com that she didn’t “even realize my coaches put in an inquiry” for her score.
“When it came through, I was very proud of myself. It was my first event final and it’s my first event medal. That is crazy,” she said.
In his social media post, Ciolacu went a step further, claiming that the situation was similar to Romanians being overridden by the Soviet Union in previous Olympic Games.
“The fact that hundreds of millions of viewers from all over the world were, like us Romanians, effectively shocked by this terrible scene, shows that somewhere, in the system of organizing this competition, something is wrong,” he said. “I don’t want to argue with anyone today, but I just choose to protest with my gesture against a blatant injustice towards some Romanian women who have fully proven their worth.”
It was the program’s return to the Olympics after a 12-year break. Romania had been a longtime superpower in gymnastics.
Nadia Comaneci, a retired Romanian gymnast who won multiple Olympic gold medals, criticized the review that led to Chiles’ victory.
“I can’t believe we play with athletes mental health and emotions like this ... let’s protect them,” the nine-time Olympic medalist wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“We remind you that Sabrina Voinea was fined with a tenth for allegedly going in an acrobatic line with her heel outside the line. Video images and photos confirm this theory,” the letter reads, according to a translation from Romanian.
The International Gymnastics Federation didn’t respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment; the federation hasn’t issued a public response to the claims.
