Romanian Prime Minister boycotts Paris Olympics closing ceremony after medals were snatched away by the US team?
2024-08-07
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According to reports from foreign media including the British Daily Telegraph and the American Forbes website on the 6th, Romanian Prime Minister Ciolacu decided to refuse to attend the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics because he accused the US team of "shamefully" snatching a medal from a Romanian gymnast.
According to reports, in the women's floor exercise final on August 5, 18-year-old Romanian Ana Barbosu originally ranked third in the score, allowing the country to return to the Olympic podium for the first time since 2012. However, she eventually lost the bronze medal. After the US team appealed the score, the ranking was revised and Barbosu became fourth. The medal was won by American Jordan Chiles.
Romanian Prime Minister Ciola Ku Photo source: Visual China
Romanian Prime Minister Ciolacu said, "After the scandal in the gymnastics competition, I decided not to attend the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics. Our athletes have been treated absolutely disgracefully," he wrote on the social platform Facebook. "It is totally unacceptable to cancel a medal won through honest efforts because of complaints that neither coaches nor top technicians can understand." Ciolacu also believes that the United States unfairly used its influence as a sports superpower to modify the results of the competition.
According to reports, American player Chels originally ranked fifth, but the American team appealed to the referee on the grounds that one of her skills was not initially counted, and soon her score rose from 13.600 to 13.766. This led to Chels surpassing Babosu, who was originally ranked third.
The live video showed that Babosu took out the national flag to celebrate, but when she looked up and saw the score ranking changes on the big screen, she was shocked. After learning that she missed the medal, she shed tears and her coach comforted her. On the same day on social media, Babosu posted a video of herself during the game and wrote: "Thank you to everyone who encouraged me before, during and after the game."
This incident has sparked outrage in Romania. Ciolacu's post reads: "In such a grand competition that promotes values such as respect, understanding and excellence, a child who won a medal through honesty was cruelly deprived of the fruits of her four years of hard work. This is unacceptable! Seeing her in tears, it is completely normal to accept such things calmly. I can't stand it... Hundreds of millions of viewers around the world, like us Romanians, were shocked by this terrible scene, which shows that something went wrong somewhere in the organizational system of this competition."
The controversy caused by this match did not stop there. According to Forbes, another Romanian player, Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, was deducted 0.100 points by the referee for "stepping out of bounds". John Roethlisberger, a sports commentator for NBC, pointed out after the match that by reviewing the video, it can be found that her feet were clearly still within the boundary of the field, and the referee's judgment was wrong. This incident further intensified the indignation of the Romanian side.
The report pointed out that if the score was corrected, Sabrina's score would rise from 13.700 to 13.800, and she would rise from fourth place tied with Babosu to third place, regaining the bronze medal taken away by the American team. But the only problem is: the award ceremony was held on the 5th, and the International Gymnastics Federation has never deprived medals after the competition, unless the athlete is found to have violated the rules, such as being found to have doping.
According to a previous report by The Washington Post, 23-year-old American athlete Jordan Chels' parents led her to participate in gymnastics on her 7th birthday in order to curb her ADHD. After she became a professional athlete, she was promoted to the elite level in just a few years. At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, she and her teammates won the women's team silver medal and the team gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics.#Olympic Hundreds of Comments#
