Jordan Chiles on approaching Olympic season with confidence: "I don't have to change anything"
What a difference four years have made for U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles, a member of the silver medal-winning team from Tokyo 2020.
The 23-year-old had always had the talent – including as a highly successful junior athlete – but at times had struggled to put it all together when it counted.
But then, after the COVID-19 pandemic-induced break, Chiles emerged as one of the stars of the U.S. squad.
In the lead-up to the Tokyo 2020 Games, Chiles was Team USA’s rock, making no doubt she belonged after hitting every routine at the 2021 Winter Cup, U.S. Classic, U.S. Championships and U.S. Olympic trials.
She went on to lead the U.S. team to a gold medal, its sixth-straight, at the 2022 World Championships and was an integral member of the Pan American gold medal team in 2023, in addition to a highly successful run as a member of the UCLA Bruins women’s gymnastics team.
Combined, those experiences have given Chiles confidence heading into her second Olympic year.
“If you guys want to know what my motto is this year, my motto is 'I’m that girl,'” Chiles told a small group of reporters, including Olympics.com, earlier this year at a USA Gymnastics media summit held during the squad’s February national team camp in Katy, Texas. “I feel like I’ve proved enough to this world that I feel like I don’t have to express a lot.
“I don’t have to change anything,” she continued, “and I can just be authentic to who I want to be. If you don’t like, you don’t like it. If you don’t want to ride with, you don’t have to ride with me.”
Jordan Chiles: Making an impact for African American gymnasts
Chiles is part of a new, more diverse generation. One - she says - is making it easier for others to breakthrough.
“I feel like the younger generation can see that there are more girls like them,” Chiles said. “It is a little easier [now]. It is a little easier because there are more of us and it’s giving them perspective in a different way.”
With Chiles and other standout Black athletes including six-time world all-around champion Simone Biles and two-time world all-around medallist Shilese Jones vying for spots on the American team for Paris, there’s a possibility that the U.S. could send a team entirely of African Americans.
That possibility excites Chiles.
“It would mean the world, it would mean that no matter where we go, there’s always gonna be history,” she said. “It would mean that not only has the culture of our sport changed, but it definitely will give a perspective of [that] the changes [are] coming even more.”
Jordan Chiles: Brushing off 2023
Chiles isn’t getting ahead of herself though. She’s aware that making the team will be a difficult challenge.
“This is gonna be the hardest anybody’s ever gonna make, having that much talent,” admitted Chiles. “Having, obviously, three Olympic all-arounders (Biles, Sunisa Lee and Gabby Douglas), World champions and an Olympic team coming back from college, it’s going to be a tough team to make.”
2023 was far from a perfect season for Chiles.
Following her sophomore campaign at UCLA, she took time off, traveled with some of teammates and contemplated whether she wanted to return to elite gymnastics or continue exclusively with college.
Chiles, ultimately, of course, chose a run at Paris 2024, but a late resumption of her elite training at World Champions Centre in Houston, Texas, with coaches Cecile and Laurent Landi, and alongside Biles, put her behind the curve.
While Chiles was the leader of the U.S. team at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, she missed a second trip to the Worlds, something she admits she doesn’t feel like she deserved.
Still, she doesn’t regret her 2023 timeline.
“I’m happy I was able to enjoy [some time] with my NCAA teammates,” Chiles explained. “Then, coming in and seeing where my mind truly was.
“Now, I’m ready for ‘24 and just to leave ’23 behind and see how ’24 turns out,” she concluded.
Chiles had been scheduled to compete at the Winter Cup in February but said in a post on social media that a shoulder ‘tweak’ would keep her out.
“I am frustrated I can’t perform for you all, but this is also part of our sport and things like this only fuel me for what’s coming," she wrote.
Now, she's set to make her season debut at the U.S. Classic in Hartford, Connecticut.
One thing not fueling her a desire to prove anything, not even after the ups and downs of last year.
“I do not have to prove anything,” Chiles says straightforwardly. “I am a World champion. I will forever be a World champion. I’m an Olympian. I will forever be an Olympian. Those titles will never be stripped away from me.”
Just like she’ll always be ‘that girl.’
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