It seems that every four years there is a story of heartbreak at the Olympics. This year it is the story of Jordan Chiles, the American gymnast.

After completing her individual floor exercise Chiles was in fifth place. The apparent winner of the bronze medal was the Romanian gymnast, Ana Barbosu. Within minutes, everything seemed to change. Chiles’ coach appealed her score, arguing that the judges failed to properly score the difficulty of her routine. They argued that the judges failed to account for a difficult move.

The scores were changed to properly reflect the difficulty of Chiles' routine and images of a jubilant Chiles dominated our television screens. Unfortunately, we were also confronted with images of a devastated Barbosu, who now lost her medal.

Chiles’ win culminated in an iconic photo of Chiles and Biles bowing to the gold medal winner, Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade. To me, that picture personified the sense of sportsmanship and unity that is the Olympics and should hold its own place in Olympic history.

On Saturday we learned that Barbosu’s coaches had waged their own appeal, now arguing that Chiles’ appeal was entered too late, approximately four seconds after the one-minute deadline. And the Court of Arbitration for Sports agreed with them and reinstated Chiles’ original score and fifth place ranking. As of Sunday, the International Olympic Committee announced that Chiles must relinquish her medal to Barbosu. As of this writing the US Olympic Committee was appealing this decision.

While there are no photographs of Chiles after receiving the news, she has now removed herself from social media. One can only imagine her devastation.  To me, she clearly won the right to the medal as her proper score placed her in third place.

I am very curious about what the athletes among us think of this controversy.  Is it the rules are the rules? And, as the appeal was not made timely Chiles lost the right to appeal?  And what of Olympian gymnast, Sunisa Lee’s, comment on social media, “All this talk about the athlete, what about the judges?”

What do you think?