USA Gymnastics officials say an arbitration panel won’t reconsider a decision asking gymnast Jordan Chiles to return the bronze medal she won at the Paris Olympics
The interesting thing about this though is that a key party was not involved nor able to submit allegedly conclusive evidence. Which I understand in theory, as the arbitration was not adversarial against the US, but in practice makes for an outcome that doesn’t actually allow every stakeholder to present their case.
Exactly this. I imagine the CAS report was heavily influenced by evidence provided by the Romanian Gymnastics team and it is clear that USAG was not given an opportunity to provide counter evidence. I am not familiar with how arbitration traditionally works, but this process seems susceptible to corruption.
Well the Romanian Committee submitted the appeal and CAS would not have opened an investigation without evidence? They may not have used that evidence in their official ruling but there was almost certainly evidence provided by Romania to file the appeal. You can’t just file appeals willy nilly
Yes, that’s what I meant but maybe I didn’t phrase it correctly. They provided some evidence they gathered but it was not used to determine the verdict. In fact, the evidence they gathered pointed to 1m24s having passed, most likely because they had no way of knowing exactly when the judge registered the inquiry. But TAS then checked their internal timekeeping and discovered it was in fact 1m4s.
I am not 100% sure on the precise details but USAG tried to appeal with new evidence showing that Chiles’s orignal appeal was submitted 47 seconds after the score was posted. CAS refused to reconsider the case in light of this evidence thus effectively shutting USAG out of the case.
Also. As far as I am concerned, whatever “official times” they have are questionable at best given that they clearly messed it up one way or the other. Chiles was originally within the time limit and then they came out and said that she wasn’t indicating a lack of precision in the timing of appeals.
Lastly, it appears that the evidence is largely based on third party recordings from television cameras and whatever else which also leads me to question the efficacy of the times. It does not appear that there was a precise way of measuring times after scores were posted otherwise they wouldn’t have missed it up on the first place.
there is an “official source”. it’s the omega system that times the whole competition and all the logs. the initial evidence may have been based on tv recordings, but it was judged upon the official system. the initial suggested time for the us inquiry was around 1.20, the cas coreected it to 1.04 according to this system.
“The time-stamped, video evidence submitted by USA Gymnastics Sunday evening shows Landi first stated her request to file an inquiry at the inquiry table 47 seconds after the score is posted, followed by a second statement 55 seconds after the score was originally posted,” USA Gymnastics said in its statement.
“The video footage provided was not available to USA Gymnastics prior to the tribunal’s decision and thus USAG did not have the opportunity to previously submit it.”
The Romanian gymnastics federation determined it was 4 seconds late as part of their appeal , but no evidence has been supplied to USAG or the public on how they came to that conclusion.
But FIG did admit that the Romanian federation was right.
What I’ve heard is that CAS contacted the wrong USA officials which is why they didn’t get a response or this evidence before considering the case. Have not been able to confirm that.
The interesting thing about this though is that a key party was not involved nor able to submit allegedly conclusive evidence. Which I understand in theory, as the arbitration was not adversarial against the US, but in practice makes for an outcome that doesn’t actually allow every stakeholder to present their case.
Exactly this. I imagine the CAS report was heavily influenced by evidence provided by the Romanian Gymnastics team and it is clear that USAG was not given an opportunity to provide counter evidence. I am not familiar with how arbitration traditionally works, but this process seems susceptible to corruption.
No Romanian evidence was considered during the trial.
Well the Romanian Committee submitted the appeal and CAS would not have opened an investigation without evidence? They may not have used that evidence in their official ruling but there was almost certainly evidence provided by Romania to file the appeal. You can’t just file appeals willy nilly
Yes, that’s what I meant but maybe I didn’t phrase it correctly. They provided some evidence they gathered but it was not used to determine the verdict. In fact, the evidence they gathered pointed to 1m24s having passed, most likely because they had no way of knowing exactly when the judge registered the inquiry. But TAS then checked their internal timekeeping and discovered it was in fact 1m4s.
what counter-evidence? the time was measured the same for both parties. the official footage, timings and so on are all on record.
I am not 100% sure on the precise details but USAG tried to appeal with new evidence showing that Chiles’s orignal appeal was submitted 47 seconds after the score was posted. CAS refused to reconsider the case in light of this evidence thus effectively shutting USAG out of the case.
Also. As far as I am concerned, whatever “official times” they have are questionable at best given that they clearly messed it up one way or the other. Chiles was originally within the time limit and then they came out and said that she wasn’t indicating a lack of precision in the timing of appeals.
Lastly, it appears that the evidence is largely based on third party recordings from television cameras and whatever else which also leads me to question the efficacy of the times. It does not appear that there was a precise way of measuring times after scores were posted otherwise they wouldn’t have missed it up on the first place.
there is an “official source”. it’s the omega system that times the whole competition and all the logs. the initial evidence may have been based on tv recordings, but it was judged upon the official system. the initial suggested time for the us inquiry was around 1.20, the cas coreected it to 1.04 according to this system.
“The time-stamped, video evidence submitted by USA Gymnastics Sunday evening shows Landi first stated her request to file an inquiry at the inquiry table 47 seconds after the score is posted, followed by a second statement 55 seconds after the score was originally posted,” USA Gymnastics said in its statement.
“The video footage provided was not available to USA Gymnastics prior to the tribunal’s decision and thus USAG did not have the opportunity to previously submit it.”
But FIG did admit that the Romanian federation was right.
Hopefully the Swiss court will clear this up.
What I’ve heard is that CAS contacted the wrong USA officials which is why they didn’t get a response or this evidence before considering the case. Have not been able to confirm that.
Which, if true, shows a problem in procedure and the USA should be able to submit evidence now.
Yeah it’s one of those times where the process can be infuriating