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A major conflict of interest could be brewing in the decision surrounding the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s ruling to strip gymnast Jordan Chiles of her Olympic bronze medal and award it to Romanian Ana Barbosu.
The head of the three-person special tribunal that ruled on the complaint successfully lodged by Romania has represented the country in arbitration cases in the past, documents reported on by the New York Times showed.
The complaint claimed that the U.S. did not make its request for an inquiry into Chile’s score — which ultimately was successful — before the one-minute cutoff time.
The U.S. has now claimed it had video evidence that showed its appeal had come within the one-minute cutoff time, but it did not convince the CAS to take another look at the ruling.
The ruling was made over the weekend to reallocate the bronze awarded to Chiles as part of the floor event to Barbosu with few details known about the deliberation process or how the verdict came about.
The decision has drawn outrage in the U.S., and U.S. Olympic and gymnastics officials have threatened to take the matter further to the Swiss courts.
Now that it has emerged that Hamid G. Gharavi, the head of the panel, had a connection to Romania likely furthers the anger around the decision.
Gharavi is a lawyer in France and is serving as legal counsel to Romania in disputes at the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, according to details first published by The International Institute for Conflict Resolution and Prevention and reported on by The Times.
His work for the Romanians dates back nearly a decade, and under the rules of the sports court, arbitrators are required to disclose conflict of interests before hearings start.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport told The Times in an email that Gharavi had disclosed his work for Romania and that there hadn’t been any objections from the parties involved.
“In accordance with the guidelines on conflicts of interest issued by the International Bar Association (IBA), CAS has no reason to remove an arbitrator making such disclosure if the parties do not object to his/her appointment,” the statement read.
USA Gymnastics has indicated that it would explore all its options to try and fight the CAS ruling including going to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, which can only hear appeals over decisions by the CAS involving breaches of process.
China did have luck in front of the Swiss after successfully arguing that the chair of a tribunal that looked into the doping case involving a top Chinese swimmer may have had a bias against the Chinese.
The decision to give Barbosu the bronze dropped the Chiles down to fifth and left her heartbroken over the decision.
