Jordan Chiles is more than beyond her Olympic gymnastics career

Jordan Chiles is more than beyond her Olympic gymnastics career
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It’s Jordan Chiles, “that girl.”

She took inspiration for her motto from her idol Beyoncé’s discography, which helped her reach the Olympic podium.

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“I’m that girl; it’s not about the pearls or the diamonds,” according to the tune.

When Chiles earned her third Olympic medal in Paris, the Team USA leotard was encrusted with just under a thousand pearls and 3,500 crystals. Naturally, Beyoncé highlighted her floor routine.

After arriving back from Paris, Chiles told NBC News, “That’s why it’s called artistic gymnastics—the art component is necessary.” “I enjoy providing entertainment. Since I was a little child, I have performed. I believe I am an artist.

Chiles takes her dancing and performance quality just as seriously as the flips, while the majority of her opponents attempt to regain their breath in between tumbling passes.

Like my gift, it’s something that God bestowed upon me. Why not make the most of it with everything I have?” said she. It’s just the way I am. I’m really gregarious.

Her favorite fantasy at times is to be performing live, much like a “artist on tour.”

She is, in a sense.

The American gymnastics team referred to their Paris Games experience as their “redemption tour.” Chiles’ Olympic ambitions were realized in Tokyo, although she will be the first to admit that the Games weren’t quite what she had envisioned because to the Covid pandemic-related delays and setbacks.

Not only did she and her teammates win their long-awaited gold medals this time around, but a large crowd attended their competition as well.

Regarding the crowded Paris stands, Chiles stated, “You can feel more at ease and comfortable when you have an audience.””You might maybe channel the energy they’re providing you with onto the competition floor. I therefore had a great time.”

She continued, “I’m glad my family was able to share in the event and that they relished every second just as much as I did.”

Aside from Simone Biles, Chiles was the only member of Team USA to compete in all four events during the team final. Chiles’s last tumble pass ended with her feet hitting the mat, causing her to cry.

The most important factor, in my opinion, is that team trust is everything. We had done everything we could at that point, and I had a wonderful feeling that the story would come to a wonderful conclusion,” she remarked.

For some competitors, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics postponement caused preparation challenges, but for Chiles, it was a game-changer.

She was considering giving up her childhood dream of competing in the Olympics and quitting professional gymnastics entirely before the world collapsed due to the pandemic.

For years, Chiles had been a gymnastics prodigy, doing feats of acrobatics that most Olympians would have considered unthinkable. When the moment came for her to compete for her Olympic ambition, she found herself in a training environment where she claimed to be the target of bigotry and verbal abuse, feeling as though her progress had stopped.

Biles then gave a call.

Chiles was invited to practice with the gymnast who is largely considered the greatest in history at the World Champions Centre, which is owned by the Biles family in Spring, Texas.

“Many people tend to avoid her as a person since they only perceive her as an athlete,” Chiles said of her buddy and training partner.

She said, “Since I’ve known her for a very long time—since I was around 9 or 10 years old—I am familiar with her personality.”

Chiles resurfaced in 2021 as a completely different athlete after finding a new gymnastics home with Biles and her trainers, Cecile and Laurent Landi. She completed 24 consecutive routines in the run-up to Tokyo, locking up an Olympic spot that had appeared so far beyond her reach just a year before.

“From my previous gym, I had lost confidence as a result of everything I had experienced,” she stated. “I consider coaches to be second parents; they can help you channel your emotions and get to places where they can encourage you.”

Biles stayed by her side the entire time, and Chiles was there to repay the favor when the “twisties” arrived in Tokyo. In the team final, she unexpectedly took Biles’ place on the uneven bars without even warming up, and she helped Team USA win a silver medal.

“We are like sisters; we joke, laugh, weep, and occasionally get angry with one another,” Biles told Chiles. “I therefore find it quite great to have a colleague at every turn and to simply cherish the things I’ve accomplished with her.”

The Olympic moment they generated in Paris is so famous that the Louvre is interested in it.

Following her maiden Olympic medal win on appeal in Monday’s dramatic floor exercise final, Chiles hatched a plot with Biles to honor gold-winning Brazilian gymnastics sensation Rebeca Andrade. Chiles suggested that they kneel down on the podium before Andrade.

Why don’t we offer her flowers too, since she’s giving so many to us Americans? In that instant, everything felt just right,” Chiles remarked of Andrade.

43 million people viewed the image on X after it was shared by the Olympic Games’ official account.

“Perhaps we ought to display it at the Louvre,” retorted the largest museum in the world, home to famous works of art like the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.

https://twitter.com/MuseeLouvre/status/1820468503910261176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1820468503910261176%7Ctwgr%5E6fa97bd448e6d4a95764a5c7fc88e66f186aa6e1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fiframe.nbcnews.com%2FskZR5Qv%3F_showcaption%3Dtrueapp%3D1

The gesture represents a changing elite gymnastics culture, which Chiles has played a key role in igniting. In a sport long defined by cold rivalry and stoic youngsters, a new era has begun.

Chiles took up the custom of sprinting from one area of an arena to another during competitions to support her rivals during their floor routines while she was an NCAA gymnastics competitor for UCLA.

“Before returning for this Olympic cycle, we attended college, and while we did have different experiences there, we still wanted to apply our NCAA experiences here,” Chiles stated. “That seems to be kind of altering the rules.”

She takes great care to curate her social media account to capture her unwavering energy. People who “aren’t flipping on a four-inch piece of wood” are a source of fuel for negativity.

“It really lights a lot of fire under me, so I hold my ground,” Chiles stated. “That was one thing Simone did teach me. You basically have to apply that to something else and use it.”

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