Gymnast Jordan Chiles’ long journey back to the Olympics is rooted in joy

SPRING, Texas (AP) — Jordan Chiles still remembers the first time someone handed her a ribbon for something she did at a gymnastics meet.

She was maybe 7 or 8 and a Level 4, the entry point to competition for the thousands of kids who take up the sport.

The details of what Chiles did that day are fuzzy at best. The jolt of adrenaline that sprinted through her as she caressed the first of what has become countless gold ribbons is not.

“I was like, ‘Oh, this is what it feels like to win? OK, I got this. This is cool,’” Chiles said.

It still is, only Chiles’ definition of winning has evolved nearly two decades after that initial blush with success.

Sure, she remains intensely competitive, a trait Chiles says she inherited from her mother Gina. Yet Chiles realized a while ago the competition she faces whenever she steps onto the podium doesn’t come from the outside, but from within.

When Chiles walks into Bercy Arena in Paris on July 28 to begin a second trip to the Olympics that very few outside of her inner circle saw coming when 2024 began, her goal won’t be to beat anyone but to vanquish a memory.

Don’t get her wrong. Chiles cherishes the silver medal that the four-woman U.S. team earned at the Tokyo Games three years ago on a memorable night in which good friend Simone Biles removed herself from the lineup in the middle of the meet to focus on her mental health.

“We won that silver,” Chiles said. “We had so much grace and power and leadership in that moment. I was just so proud of everybody.”

It’s what happened two days prior during qualifying, however, that lingers. Chiles fell off the balance beam that night inside the eerily quiet Ariake Gymnastics Centre and put together a sloppy routine on bars that was far from her best.

Chiles didn’t come particularly close to earning a spot in any of the individual finals and remembers the tearful phone call in the aftermath to Gina — half a world away back in Houston after COVID-19 pandemic protocols prevented family and friends from making the trip to Japan.

“I was like, ‘This is crazy, I failed,’” Chiles said.

The decision to make a run at the Paris Games was born in that moment. And it had nothing to do with coming home with “just” one medal in her carry-on. She had let the weight of it all leave her “overwhelmed and stressed” at a time she should have been enjoying the realization of a dream. It just never really felt that way.

“That wasn’t my best performance,” she said. “I knew I could give more.”

Long road back

Chiles had no idea at the time how much it would take to get back.

The last three years have been a whirlwind. She enrolled at UCLA in the fall of 2021 and spent two seasons leaning into the team environment and freedom of expression that college gymnastics provide, particularly on floor exercise, where the hip-hop-inspired routine she competed as a sophomore went viral and racked up perfect 10s in equal measure.

She left the Bruins and returned to World Champions Centre in Houston in the summer of 2023 to begin preparations for Paris, a transition that proved harder than expected both personally and professionally.

Chiles lost her aunt, Crystal Oliver, and grandfather, Gene Velasquez, in 2023.

“They always believed in me before they passed, that if I could do (one Olympics) I could do another,” Chiles said.

And so she pressed on even as she grieved, a process she admitted after the U.S. Olympic trials she is still going through. She honored Velasquez with a tattoo on her left forearm that reads “Where you are, I have been. Where I am, you will be.”

That’s why the tears flowed so freely when Chiles heard her name among the five called at the end of the U.S. gymnastics trials last month. The last 15 months have been a roller coaster, emotionally, mentally and physically.

Turns out she missed her college teammates more than she imagined. Her elite skills were slow(ish) to return. She was disappointed when she wasn’t selected for the world championship team last fall, a decision she knew was right based on where she was at the time.

Battling injuries

Gina Chiles describes the journey her daughter has been on lately as “pure grit.” That’s not a proud parent pumping up their child. It’s the reality.

Jordan missed Winter Cup in February — the first tune-up of the year — with a sprained shoulder. About three weeks later, she suffered a bone bruise and partially tore the lateral collateral ligament on the outside of her knee.

“I was like, ‘I’m done. I’m over this. I’m not doing any more. This is not it,’” Chiles said.

The lure of quitting passed, replaced with the realization that the downtime provided her with an opportunity to upgrade her uneven bars, the only one of the four events where the stress on the lower body is minimal.

She also learned to let everything go and practice what she so often preaches to younger gymnasts, whom she tells to “write your story, write your chapters, and they’re going to turn out how you want them to turn out.”

No matter how the run-up to Paris went, she understood that certain things were never going to change.

“I am a world champion. I will forever be a world champion. I’m an Olympian. I will forever be an Olympian,” she said. “Those titles will never be stripped away from me.”

Olympic goals

Some new ones, however, may be added by the end of the Games. A team gold would be nice. So would a spot in an event final. Her best chances may be on vault or floor exercise, though she’ll have to finish ahead of at least two of her teammates during qualifying to have a shot.

There is something more basic at stake, however. Medal or no medal, she wants to go out there and maximize the talent she believes God has given her. That didn’t happen in Tokyo. And that is why she’s here, putting her body through this while serving as the unofficial hype woman of a team that will arrive in Paris under a spotlight that can sometimes be scorching.

She’s grown used to the temperature, driven by a purpose that goes far beyond anything that may happen in the arena.

Chiles knows she’s part of a wave of women of color who have made gymnastics more accessible and visible to athletes who look like her. Her mission isn’t focused on winning but feeling empowered to do things your way. It’s one of the reasons Chiles’ Beyonce-inspired leotards and floor music are not a coincidence.

“If she’s a queen, I’m a queen,” Chiles said with a laugh.

More importantly, Chiles is also a role model. The lesson she wants others to take away during this somewhat unexpected Olympic return is: don’t put limits on yourself.

It’s why, when you ask her about the Los Angeles Games that loom four years away — when she’ll be 27, the same age good friend Biles is now — she plays coy.

“For ‘28, you never know,” she said. “You might see me in gymnastics or you might see me in a different sport. I’m not going to say what sport. You could still see me competing though, I’ll give you that.”

The answer to those questions can wait. There are more pressing matters in front of her. Namely, finding joy in simply still being able to do this. After all she’s been through, she owes it to herself.

“I did dedicate my life to this,” she said. “I did sacrifice a lot of things for myself. I did do all these things. And at the end of the day, when it’s finally done it over with, I can finally I can look at myself in the mirror and be like, ‘You did everything that you said you (would).’”