Many gymnastics fans were curious to see how Jordan Chiles would perform in qualifications and whether or not she would go to the all-around or event finals or be disqualified due to the sport’s two-per-country rule.
Chiles Only Managed a Score of 12.866
It really wasn’t her afternoon to relax. Twenty-year-old Chiles only managed a score of 12.866 on the bars and then closed the day with two falls on beam, one during an acrobatic series and another during her dismount. With that, she was always third-best amongst American women.
In the end, she will return home with a gold nonetheless, as the United States will be hoping to do much better in the team final.
Only Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee were ranked higher than Chiles in all-around competition in the Olympic Trials a month ago. She is the most reliable and steady gymnast on the U.S. team, having made no serious errors in any of the four big domestic tournaments this year. That’s 24 different routines she performed without a single miss.
However, Chiles had a difficult road to the Olympics, missing out on big international tournaments and even contemplating retirement in 2018 because “I didn’t think the sport needed me anymore.”
Then, Biles proposed that Chiles go to Texas so that she could train with Biles at her facility, World Champions Centre. Chiles took the counsel to heart.
If any gymnast profited from the Games being postponed, it was Chiles. After being left off the squad for the 2019 global championships, Chiles performed so brilliantly in 2021 that she was essentially a lock for Tokyo even before the trials began.
Even though July marked the conclusion of the Olympics, gymnast extraordinaire Jordan Chiles isn’t taking it easy. The 20-year-old is on the go once again, but this time she isn’t accompanied by her silver medal-winning U.S. women’s team mates from Tokyo.
I’ve been travelling quite a bit,” she tells ESSENCE. Moving from New York to Los Angeles, then back to New York, then back to Los Angeles, and finally to Texas. I’ve been putting myself out there in a number of different ways, and it’s been a lot of fun.
Last Words
The best gymnast in the world stood on the sidelines in his warmups, which was both a bizarre and unsettling sight. The American squad would finish in second place and win a silver medal.
Due to a lacklustre performance in the qualifying rounds, Chiles was eliminated from both the all-around and the event finals. With a silver medal in hand, her Olympic dreams are over.
