‘We ugly cried’: Jordan Chiles savors euphoria of surprise Olympic bronze medal

Gina Chiles would have been happy either way.

Whether the inquiry submitted by Jordan Chiles’ coach would move her onto the podium or keep her in fifth place during the floor exercise final on Monday, Gina was already proud. In the stands at Bercy Arena, she kept showering applause. Then she saw the standings reset.

Her daughter was an Olympic bronze medalist.

“If I could tell the sounds that will be ingrained in my ears of the roar and cheer of everyone from every country and then seeing Jordan just overjoyed — it’s just unbelievable,” Gina said. “We ugly cried, we cheered, we screamed, it’s just amazing.”

Jordan won her first individual Olympic medal Monday at Bercy Arena in dramatic fashion, stepping up as the final competitor of a long 10 days of the Olympic artistic gymnastics program and doing just enough — upon review — to cap her long-awaited redemption arc.

Initially Gina wasn’t sure if Jordan had done enough to eclipse Romania’s Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, who were tied in the bronze medal position with scores of 13.700. She had bounced up on her first landing and landed short on her last, needing to take a step forward to steady herself. The two-time NCAA champion at UCLA was initially in fifth place with a mark of 13.666.

But Cecile Landi noticed a lower-than-normal difficulty score. The coach submitted an inquiry, which asks judges to ensure gymnasts get credit for all of their skills by checking for the required body shapes or the necessary revolutions on their turns. Most of the inquiries had been rejected during these Games, but Landi figured that there was nothing to lose to get an extra tenth that could change the standings.

Chiles had no idea that her coaches had asked for a second-look. When it was announced over the public address system, she stared at the big screen in the arena waiting for the result. When Landi heard screaming, she turned and looked up too.

With tears of joy, Jordan jumped into her coach’s arms.

“She has been wanting that individual medal at the Olympics and [to] redeem herself from Tokyo,” Landi said, “and I think she did.”

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The memory of missing her routines on bars and beam during qualification in her Olympic debut three years ago fueled Chiles’ pursuit of Paris. She entered the Tokyo Games having hit every competitive routine for a year straight. Then she did not make any event finals. She called her parents who were half a world away, tearfully telling them she had failed.

With three of her teammates also returning from those Games, the Americans called the Paris Games their “redemption tour.”

The first stop was qualification, where Jordan exorcised her Tokyo demons by hitting all four of her routines. Sitting in the stands next to Snoop Dogg, Gina felt like “we won the Olympics” already.

“Full redemption happened after qualifications and team gold,” Gina said, “and then everything else was just going to be the cherry on top.”

Jordan advanced to the floor final, which was her first time competing in an Olympic event final, but she should have had more. Her scores were high enough to advance to the all-around and vault finals, too. She was kept out by the rule that allows only two gymnasts per country in each final.

While disappointed to not advance, Chiles stayed focused in the gym during the six days since the final team competition, Landi said. She cheered on her teammates during their event finals just like how she learned at UCLA, where she not only won individual national titles on bars and floor, but was also one of the team’s emotional leaders en route to the national semifinal in 2023 before taking last season off to train for the Olympics.

“I honestly think that UCLA helped a lot,” said Gina, who did not specify whether her daughter has decided on her collegiate gymnastics future yet. “It’s not just about you, it’s about the entire team and you could be disappointed and feel all of the feelings, but then you know you still have a job to do, and that’s what she went out and did.”

On the third step of the podium, Chiles received her prize for a job well done. She clutched the medal with both hands. She kissed it. She held it aloft.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.