When Jordan Chiles stepped onto the competition floor at the U.S. National Gymnastics Championships this spring, she did so entirely as herself. Which, of course, meant she was wearing a leotard inspired by Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour that had a rainbow Pucci-esque checkerboard and roughly 4,400 Swarovski crystals. It was a powerful sartorial statement for a sport not typically known for its fashion, and instantly drove home the point Chiles hoped to make: that she’s that girl. “I feel beautiful in it, I feel strong, powerful,” she told The Washington Post of the look. “I’m Jordan Chiles, and there’s only one me—this Leo definitely says that.”
If you aren’t familiar with Chiles’s history, you might not understand why proudly proclaiming herself “that girl” is an achievement in and of itself, regardless of how many medals she may go on to earn later this summer as a member of the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team.
For Chiles, one of five children growing up in Vancouver, Washington, gymnastics was the solution for her seemingly endless well of energy. “I had really bad ADHD when I was younger,” Chiles tells me. “It was getting to the point where my teachers were concerned whether I was going to be able to pass school. So I always say, ‘Gymnastics saved me.’” Being able to get her energy out was “something I’m very thankful for,” she says. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I wasn’t in this sport.”
Her parents, who named Chiles after Michael Jordan, primed her for greatness, often telling her and her siblings that they were superheroes. So excelling at a sport where you learn to fly made sense to a young Chiles: “I was like, ‘Ooh, maybe I have a gift, too,’” she says. “Maybe I’m a superhero, too.” And it was also just fun to have something to show off to her classmates. “It always made me feel really cool, like, ‘Yeah I can do a flip. How about you?’”
But over time, the joy she felt in having something that set her apart from her peers at school began to fade as she learned that being unique in gymnastics was not always a good thing. After all, gymnastics is not a sport that has historically embraced differences, and Chiles came of age at a time when the image of a gymnast in many people’s minds was someone lithe, petite, and white—the so-called little girls in pretty boxes. “Every single time I went into a competition, I was like, ‘Well, what are they going to say this time?’” Chiles says. “I was racially attacked. I was always told, ‘You’re not the typical gymnast. You look like a man. You’re too muscular.’”
Chiles was told to watch her food intake (leading her to sometimes eat nothing but soup), and to not lift weights or gain an ounce because she was already deemed too muscular. That strength could ever be considered a weakness in a sport where athletes hurl themselves into the air at top speeds with nothing more than their own muscle power is as befuddling to Chiles now as it was then. “You’re telling me I’m not going to have muscles when I’m throwing my own weight around?” she says. “It’s like, God created this body for a reason, so I’m going to use it as much as I can.”
Her breaking point came in 2018 when—despite placing second in the all-around at the national championships the year before, and placing third in the 2018 World Cup—she was not named to the senior national team or the world team that year. “I lost the love of the sport,” she says. “I felt like I didn’t belong; I felt like gymnastics didn’t want me.”
She had just graduated from high school and thought seriously about leaving all of it behind. No more gymnastics, not even in college. “I didn’t want to do anything,” Chiles says. “I was like, ‘I’m done with this sport. I’m over it.’” But when her friend Simone Biles caught wind of this, she invited Chiles to come train with her at her parents’ gym in Spring, Texas.
Moving to Texas proved to be exactly the fresh start Chiles needed—a whole new chapter in her story. That she can even talk about the dark times she experienced in the sport now is a feat. “If you had asked me about this a while ago, I probably would have been very silent and not known what to say. So to be able to speak about what I went through shows me that my life is in such a better place now,” Chiles explains. “I wish I could take that part of my life back, but at the same time, I wouldn’t be the person that I am today if those things hadn’t happened, because they made me stronger, more confident, and helped me understand who I am as a person. But it did take me a while to get the love back. I can tell you that.”
She also credits her mom with helping her learn to love the sport again. “Ever since I was little, she always told me, ‘There’s only one Jordan, so be the best Jordan you can be,’” Chiles says.
Now, she’s unapologetically proud of the things that continue to set her apart: “I always say I’m not a rule follower when it comes to our sport, because who’s going to wear nails as long as mine? Who’s going to do their hair differently like me? Who’s going to do things out of the ordinary?”
In 2021, Chiles became the first woman to win the all-around at the Winter Cup (the competition had previously been for men only). She also finished first on vault and floor, second on beam, and fourth on bars. That year, she also placed second in the U.S. Classic, behind Biles, and third in the all-around at the U.S. National Championship (behind Biles and Suni Lee), securing her a spot on the national team and eventually the Olympic team ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Summer Games. But a poor performance during the Olympics qualifying round prevented Chiles from competing for any of the individual event finals. She resigned herself to performing only on the floor and vault during the team finals, and thought that would be her Olympics story. But as we now know, her teammate Biles was suffering from a bout of the twisties and would soon withdraw from the competition, with Chiles replacing her on beam and bars in the team final.
“I never thought in a million years that I was going to have to step into somebody’s shoes as big as hers,” Chiles tells me of the moment she learned she was going to compete in Biles’s place. “I was like, ‘Yo, this is my first time at the Olympics and I have to step in for you? This is crazy, what is happening?’ I didn’t believe my coach when she told me to go put my grips on. I was like, ‘You’re joking,’ and then I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m really about to do this.’”
She says she knew at that moment, when she was walking over to the bars, that she had a job to do. “And that job,” she says, “was to make sure, no matter what, I’m going to support my teammate and I’m going to do this for the team.” Chiles did just that. She hit both routines, despite not having warmed up on either, and helped Team USA win the silver medal. “The thing I learned most from that experience is always knowing that at any moment something can be thrown at you, and you have to be prepared,” she says.
Being there for Biles in the way that Biles was there for her meant a lot to Chiles. “I was the closest thing there to family for her,” Chiles says of the Tokyo Games, which, due to the pandemic, were conducted without friends and family from back home in the stands. “As much as she supported me, I supported her back.” They laugh about it now. “I’m happy that that moment happened, but I told her, ‘Please don’t ever do that again. I would really appreciate that,’” Chiles says with a chuckle. “But it definitely was an experience, and it’s going to be in the history books, and I’m proud that I can say I was a part of it. It was my superhero moment.”
As she looks ahead to this summer’s Paris Games, she’s ready for a do-over. “It took me a while to really focus on the fact that this was something I wanted to do,” she say. “I want to prove to the world that Tokyo was not my 100 percent.” And this time around, she’ll be doing it purely for herself. “I feel like I can go out there and be me,” she says. “I don’t have anything to prove. I’m not going to regret anything. I don’t doubt myself. I am always going to be an Olympian.” And now she says, “I’m going to go out there and be the best Jordan I can be.”
Her gymnastics hero
Top three, I would say, are Dominique Dawes, Aly Raisman, and then obviously my best friend, Simone Biles.
Go-to pump-up song
Anything Beyoncé. She just hypes me up, from the Destiny’s Child era all the way to her new album.
Favorite gymnastics move
My favorite move I like to do is on bars. It is called the Tkatchev. It makes me feel like I can fly.
Least favorite gymnastics move
Do I even have a least favorite? I mean, they’re skills that I wish I didn’t have to do every day, like squat turns. I just don’t like doing them all the time.
The skill she’d like to be named after
I used to do a front triple twist that I thought was going to be named after me, but someone else got it named after her. There’s this skill that I used to do—an Arabian half out in a pike position—and I thought that would be a skill that would be named after me too, but I haven’t done that in a very long time.
Good luck charm
I don’t really have a good luck thing or a superstition, but ever since I was little, I’ve always prayed with my family either before I leave for the arena or before I go onto the competition floor. God has always been with me every step of the way, so always giving him thanks 24/7 is something that I’ve always done. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a photo of me by the beam with my hands in a praying position. That’s because in those moments, being able to have somebody watch over you and feel at ease during your routine is definitely good.
Dream Olympic team
Dominique Dawes, Simone Biles, Laurie Hernandez, Aly Raisman, and Madison Kocian. If you think about it, you’ve got your floor people, and then Maddie was a magnificent bar worker. And then you have your all-arounders who, no matter what, can be put in and feel confident when it’s time for them to shine.
Her pre-competition beauty routine
You’ve got to make sure you do your skincare first to make sure your skin is nice and clean. Then you have to have a really good primer. I have really oily skin, so I try to mattify myself, so I’m not too oily or shiny by the end of the meet. I always put on foundation and concealer. I love good bronzers. I will contour my face and forget that I have to do my makeup, because I’m just sitting there contouring the whole entire time. And then obviously you’ve got to set your face. I like to do my blush while my face is setting, because I feel like it gives a different, unique look. Then when you finally put powder on, it’s sleek. I either do an air cell base first or a water base for my setting spray. And I always end with a good highlight. Of course, I do my eyebrows and my lips—those are the finishing touches.
What she thinks about the future of gymnastics
There are a lot of things that the sport of gymnastics can improve on: the diversity part of things, the mental health part of things, understanding the logistics of what artistic gymnastics is. I feel like there’s a lot of work that can still be done, and hopefully after this Olympics, people will see that it’s not just girls out on the competition floor trying to entertain you because you bought tickets. There are girls out on the competition floor fulfilling a dream that they’ve always wanted ever since they were little, and they are confident within themselves. They’re beautiful. That’s just how it is.
First call if she wins a gold medal
My mom, but she is most likely going to be there. So probably my best friend.
If she weren’t a gymnast, she would be…
If I had to choose another sport, it’d probably be track and field. But if sports weren’t something in this world, I would probably say—I used to play an instrument. I used to play the clarinet, so I’d probably do something within the music industry, whether it’s jazz or something like that. But I really want to go into real estate. I love being able to see somebody’s dream house become their reality.
