Jordan Chiles Opens Up About Bronze Medal Upset, Calling the Last Few Months "Really, Really Hard"

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Jordan Chiles has had a “very, very difficult time” after being stripped of her Bronze medal after the 2024 Olympics, but she hasn't given up the physical medal yet.

The former Teen Vogue cover star appeared on the Today show on November 11, opening up about how she's managed to navigate losing her Bronze medal in an after-the-fact upset. Chiles was awarded the medal in the women's floor final event during the Paris Games, clinching the win after her coaches filed an inquiry into her score that had initially put her in 5th place. Following the review, Chiles was bumped up to third. But shortly after her win, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that Chiles's inquiry came in too late, reverting her back to fifth place and effectively stripping her of her Bronze medal. While there's been a lot of back and forth as Chiles's team continues to fight for her win, Chiles spoke to Hoda Kotb about the mental impact of the last few months.

“Honestly, it’s been really, really hard just to comprehend everything that’s been happening,” she said, holding back tears. “I’ve been able to finally now feel comfortable, in a way, to talk about what has been happening. I feel like I have recently been trying to tell myself I've been OK the past four, five months, and it's honestly been a very, very difficult time."

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Chiles says she's focused on what she can control and what she knows to be true. “We didn't do anything wrong, everything was very right, everything was in the time it needed to be,” she said. “I think now it's just the support that's been around me, that I've been like, ‘OK, I can’t control anything that's happening on the outside, I can only control what my truth is.' I know what the truth is.”

While she's struggling to cope with the ongoing events, Chiles stands firm in her achievement. At the Olympics, Chiles was part of the first all Black gymnastics podium, something she says will have lasting impact.

“It was an all Black podium, that was history made,” she said. “That was something I'm very proud to be a part of, something that I hope people can see that it's always going to be something. That was something I'm always going to remember.”

Though she's focused on what she knows to be true, Chiles said it's undoubtedly been a hard year, something compounded by the loss of her aunt and grandfather in 2023.

“To know that this was the ending of something that I thought was going to be perfect, but as my grandpa would always says, he'd tell me that everything happens for a reason,” she said. “There have been times where my grandpa has been in tough situations…and he has been able to overcome them. So how I see it is ‘I’ll be able to overcome this.'”

Chiles told Kotb that she wants the world to know that she won the Bronze medal in the right way, and when Kotb asked where the medal is now, Chiles said with a laugh, “I have the medal!”

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue