PARIS (Reuters) – Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said on Tuesday he would snub the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics after a score revision left Romanian gymnast Ana Barbosu off the podium on the floor exercise.
Barbosu thought she had won bronze after she competed on Monday at the Bercy Arena in Paris as she stood third in the standings. But U.S. coaches for Jordan Chiles, then ranked fifth, appealed for Chiles’ score to be revised.
That revision caused Chiles to be upgraded to a bronze medal, leaving Barbosu off the podium and in tears.
“I decided not to attend the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, following the scandalous situation in the gymnastics, where our athletes were treated in an absolutely dishonourable manner,” Ciolacu wrote on Facebook.
“It is unacceptable that, in such a great competition that promotes values such as respect, understanding and excellence, a child who had honestly earned her medal to be brutally deprived of the result of four years of work!”
Former Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, known for her perfect score of 10 at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, deplored Barbosu being left off the podium after the revision.
“I can’t believe we play with athletes’ mental health and emotions like this,” she wrote on X.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Toby Davis)
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