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Amid India’s wait for the verdict on Vinesh Phogat‘s silver-medal plea, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), on Sunday, made a telling announcement as American gymnast Jordan Chiles was stripped of her Paris Olympics bronze medal in the women’s artistic gymnastics floor exercise competition after ruling in favour of Romania’s Ana Barbosu, who was moved to the third place.
Barbosu and her team appealed to CAS for an inquiry into the results of that event and argued that Chiles should not have been awarded the score of 13.766, which lifted her to third place behind winner Rebeca Andrade of Brazil and silver medallist Simone Biles of the United States. Chiles had initially been awarded a score of 13.666, while Barbosu scored 13.700.
Based on a technicality, CAS eventually ruled in favour of Barbosu, as she was awarded the bronze medal, while Chiles was asked to return her medal.
Will CAS’ verdict on Jordan Chiles case impact Vinesh Phogat’s plea?
CAS’ announcement on Chiles sparked discussions on Sunday on the potential impact it could have on Vinesh’s case, who appealed for a joint silver medal after being disqualified from the women’s 50kg freestyle wrestling final for being found overweight by 100 grams during the weigh-in before the gold-medal bout. However, while the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) was found to have violated a rule in Chiles’ case, all the regulations were adhered to by the international body overseeing wrestling in Vinesh’s scenario, hence it is verdict is unlikely to have any impact.
“Well, I don’t think it will have any impact because, technically speaking, every legal case is different from another case. The facts are different. And even in this case, if you know that there is a rule that has been framed by UWW in the case, and UWW has acted as per the rule. While in this gymnastics case, it’s different,” renowned sports lawyer Saurabh Mishra told India Today.
“The first thing that happened was that the International Gymnastics Federation did not act as per the rule, and CAS, which is the Court of Arbitration for Sport, actually acted as per the rule, whereby there was a window of one minute. So that window of one minute was not adhered to, and the coach of the athlete appealed after a gap of four seconds—a total one minute and four-second gap. So that’s the main issue.
“Also, in Vinesh’s case, I think it is significantly different from this case because it’s about Vinesh failing to meet the weight requirement on the subsequent day. So the main legal issue, in my opinion, in Vinesh’s case is: Can the valid result obtained by Vinesh on the first day be annulled due to the subsequent failed weighing on the second day? So that’s the main issue. That’s the main legality of the issue,” he added.
When will CAS announce Vinesgh Phogat’s verdict?
The announcement was expected on Friday following the three-hour-long hearing, before the deadline was extended to Saturday evening and eventually to August 13, 9:30 PM (IST).
Vinesh had attended the hearing virtually, where senior counsels Harish Salve and Vidushpat Singhania, presented her case.