Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu is refusing to attend the Olympics closing ceremony in protest over the women’s floor exercise final earlier this week in which two Romanian gymnasts did not make the medal stand.
Ciolacu said in a statement on Wednesday that Ana Bǎrbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea were treated “in an absolutely dishonorable way” by the judges in the floor final. Bǎrbosu finished in fourth place in a stunning turn of events involving American gymnast Jordan Chiles’ routine, and Maneca-Voinea was given a .1 point penalty for leaving the floor exercise mat, though it did not appear she actually stepped out of bounds.
It was Bǎrbosu’s experience that particularly rankled Ciolacu. The Romanian gymnast appeared to have locked up the bronze medal after Chiles finished her routine, the last of the day.
The American pulled out everything she had in her performance and hardly put a foot wrong, but the score came in at 13.666, only good enough for fifth place. Her coaches submitted an inquiry to challenge the difficulty score given to her by the judges and won. Another .1 points were added to her score to finish with 13.766, enough for the bronze.
That change in score was enough to push Bǎrbosu off the podium and into fourth place, a result as bitterly disappointing for the Romanian as it was thrilling for Chiles.
Ciolacu said the move was unacceptable.
“I decided not to participate in the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, after the scandalous situation in gymnastics, where our athletes were treated in an absolutely dishonorable way. To withdraw a medal earned by honest work on the basis of an appeal, which neither the coaches nor the top technicians understand, is totally unacceptable,” he said.
“It is unacceptable that, in a competition of this magnitude, which promotes values such as respect, understanding and excellence, a girl who had honestly won her medal should be brutally deprived of the result of her work of four years! I couldn’t look at her tears and accept with serenity that such a thing is perfectly normal!”
He added, “And the fact that hundreds of millions of viewers from all over the world were, like us Romanians, effectively shocked by this terrible scene, shows that somewhere, in the system of organizing this competition, something is wrong.”
Chiles said later the exhaustion after competing had set in when she saw her score pop up on the big screen at Bercy Arena. She hadn’t even realized her coaches were challenging the score.
“I was so tired, I didn’t even realize my coaches were putting in inquiry and I was like, ‘OK, yeah, like let’s see, it can vary,’” she told reporters.
“So, when it came through, I was like very proud of myself. You know, it’s my first [individual] event final and my first event medal, like this is crazy. So I was just very proud of myself.”
In or out?
Maneca-Voinea’s situation was less dramatic but is also being criticized by the Romanians.
The gymnast was penalized for leaving the mat during the floor exercise, but video did not appear to show her actually stepping out of bounds.
The Romanian Gymnastics Federation submitted a request to the International Federation of Gymnastics for a detailed analysis on why the penalty was assessed.
“Sabrina was penalized by one-tenth of a point for a hypothetical exit from the mat, which can be proven to be an error in judging,” a statement from the Romanian foundation read.
“At the same time, the FRG has requested that, in the spirit of transparency, the detailed analysis and justification for the 9 gymnasts participating in the floor final be made public, in order to provide an official response to the gymnasts, the Romanian gymnastics community, government and state authorities, and national and international media.”
