Simone Biles’s silver medal in the Paris Olympics women’s individual floor final has become a hot topic of debate. She finished just 0.033 points behind Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade. The judges missed a vital scoring review that might have changed the final standings.
The judges gave Biles’s floor routine a 14.133 score with a difficulty value of 6.9. She should have received full credit for her split leap. This would have added 0.10 points to her difficulty score if the review had been properly recorded. Her final score would have jumped to 14.233, putting her ahead of Andrade’s 14.166[-5]. She also lost 0.6 points when she stepped outside the competition mat during her performance. This close margin and missed review have made people question Olympic judging procedures and how these tiny differences can change who wins medals in gymnastics.
Video Shows Judges Miss Simone Biles Scoring Inquiry
Netflix documentary footage has revealed a significant moment during the Paris Olympics. The judges failed to process a scoring inquiry about Simone Biles’ floor routine. The video comes from the Netflix documentary “Simone Biles: Rising” and shows an important exchange between Biles and her coaches right after her performance.
The Swiss Federal Tribunal received this footage as part of Jordan Chiles’ medal appeal case. It shows Biles asking coach Cecile Landi if someone was submitting an inquiry. Landi replied, “He said he did,” referring to her husband and co-coach Laurent Landi.
Laurent spoke in French, and Cecile turned back to Biles with bad news: “They didn’t send it.” She raised her arms helplessly. This vital moment showed that Olympic officials never registered the inquiry request despite attempts to submit it.
The documentary team had special access to film inside Bercy Arena. They set up three cameras throughout the venue and recorded audio from Landi’s microphone. This setup captured evidence that would help understand what happened that day.
Biles handled the controversy gracefully on social media: “Honestly not a big deal for me, Rebeca had a better floor anyways,” she wrote. She added, “Upsetting how it wasn’t processed but I’m not mad at the results”.
This happened before another controversy about Jordan Chiles’ scoring inquiry. Cecile Landi asked her husband, “What about Jordan? You want to try?”. This second inquiry later sparked its own dispute about timing and procedures.
A properly registered inquiry for Biles’ routine would likely have earned her a fourth gold medal at the Paris Games instead of silver.
Missed Inquiry May Have Cost Simone Biles Gold Medal
A mathematical breakdown of the scoring shows how a missed scoring inquiry might have cost Simone Biles her fourth gold medal at the Paris Olympics. The gold-silver margin in the floor exercise final was incredibly tight – Biles scored 14.133 points, just 0.033 points behind Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade’s 14.166.
Biles earned a 6.9 difficulty score for her floor routine. The judges could have added a vital 0.10 points to her difficulty score if they had processed the inquiry and given her full credit for the split leap. This change would have pushed her final score to 14.233, putting her ahead of Andrade.
The judges had already deducted 0.6 points when Biles stepped outside the competition mat. Yet even with this penalty, the proper scoring adjustment would have changed the medal’s color.
This scoring issue affected more than just Biles’s individual achievement. Team USA would have secured 41 gold medals and the overall lead at the Paris Games if Biles had won gold in floor exercise. Instead, America and China tied at 40 golds.
Biles took to social media with grace about the controversy. “Honestly not a big deal for me, Rebeca had a better floor anyways,” she posted on X (formerly Twitter). She added, “Upsetting how it wasn’t processed but I’m not mad at the results”.
Her teammate Jordan Chiles’s medal situation seemed to concern Biles more than her own missed gold. “BUT JUSTICE FOR JORDAN,” she posted emphatically with four speaking emojis. “Ya hear me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Biles ended up with three golds and one silver in her Paris Olympic campaign. She had playfully noted the fierce competition with Andrade throughout, saying “I don’t want to compete with Rebecca no more. I’m tired, she’s way too close”.
Jordan Chiles Loses Bronze Amid Appeal Controversy
A scoring dispute erupted at the Olympics that affected both Simone Biles and her teammate Jordan Chiles. Chiles performed her floor routine in the Olympic final and received a score of 13.666, which put her in fifth place. Her coach Cecile Landi quickly asked judges to review the difficulty score. She pointed out that they missed giving Chiles credit for a split jump with a 540-degree turn in mid-air.
The judges looked at it again and added 0.1 points, which bumped Chiles’ score to 13.766. This change moved her into bronze medal position ahead of Romanian gymnasts Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea. Gold medalist Rebeca Andrade, silver medalist Biles, and Chiles made history as the first all-Black gymnastics podium at the Olympics.
The joy didn’t last long. The Romanian Gymnastics Federation took the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). They claimed Landi submitted her review request four seconds too late, after the one-minute deadline. CAS sided with Romania on August 10 and ruled the review invalid. So Chiles’ score went back to 13.666, dropping her to fifth place, while Barbosu got the bronze medal.
USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee fought back. “We firmly believe that Jordan rightfully earned the bronze medal,” they stated. New evidence came to light from the Netflix documentary “Simone Biles Rising.” Court documents show the video captured Landi submitting her request just 47 seconds after Chiles’ score appeared, well within the time limit.
Chiles took her case to the Swiss Federal Tribunal on September 16. She argued that CAS didn’t respect her “right to be heard” when they refused to look at the video evidence. Her appeal also highlighted that CAS panel president Hamid Gharavi might be biased since he had worked as Romania’s legal representative for almost ten years.
The situation took its toll on Chiles. USA Gymnastics reported she faced “consistent, utterly baseless and very hurtful attacks on social media”. This led Chiles to step away from social media platforms to protect her mental health.
Conclusion
The Paris Games Olympic gymnastics scoring controversies have exposed major flaws in the judging system. Simone Biles ended up losing her fourth gold medal by just 0.033 points because of a missed scoring inquiry. Video footage shows officials failing to process her coaches’ inquiry that would have added 0.10 points to her difficulty score – enough to put her ahead of Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade. Biles showed grace in defeat and focused on supporting her teammate Jordan Chiles through a separate medal dispute.
Chiles went through her own ordeal when officials stripped her bronze medal after a Romanian appeal claimed her inquiry came four seconds late. New video evidence suggests her coach made the inquiry within the allowed time. The Swiss Federal Tribunal now looks into her case that also brings up concerns about potential bias within the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
These back-to-back controversies question the core Olympic judging protocols. Biles finished her Paris Olympic experience with three gold medals and one silver, yet these scoring disputes overshadowed what should have celebrated athletic excellence. The situation shows how vital proper administrative procedures become when medals hang on fraction of points.
The impact reaches beyond individual athletes to affect national standings. The United States missed its chance at leading the gold medal count because of Biles’s scoring issue. This serves as a wake-up call to sports authorities about creating transparent and accurate judging systems that truly reflect Olympic athletes’ extraordinary achievements.