My coach didn’t believe my Mom was my mom

Olympic champion gymnast Jordan Chiles recently opened up about her struggles as a biracial athlete. Chiles’ father is an African-American, while her mother hails from the Latin American community.

In a podcast session on ‘Baby, this is Keke Palmer’, Jordan Chiles opened up about her personal life. The 24-year-old gymnast also discussed how her coach initially struggled to accept her because of her mother’s fair complexion.

Jordan Chiles revealed that she described this incident in detail in her memoir, ‘I’m the Girl : Living the Power of My Dreams’. In her words,

“Actually, it’s actually in my book, my coach didn’t believe my mom was my mom because I was black, but my mom’s Latin. So it’s like when she came and picked me up or something, my coach was like, that’s not your mom. Why can’t that be my mom? Like I’m my mix. It’s my mama. And she’s like, I have no other mother.” [10:54 onwards]

The gymnast further added,

“Right. What else do you want me to say? So I had to deal with it at a young age, but then I started to realize my identity is something that I am still finding and I get to choose and I get to explore and I get to embrace.”

Jordan Chiles is currently participating in the 34th season of the dance reality show ‘Dancing with the Stars’. The gymnast has teamed up with choreographer Ezra Sosa for the current season.

When Jordan Chiles opened about revolutionizing gymnastics alongside Simone Biles

Jordan Chiles previously opened up about her role in revolutionzing women’s gymnastics alongside gymnastics sensation Simone Biles. Both the gymnasts have trained at the World Champions Center in Spring, Texas, which is owned by Biles’ adoptive parents, Ronald Biles and Nellie Biles.

In her conversation on the ‘Recharge with David Ko podcast’, Chiles explained,

“I didn’t come into the sport to shy away from who Jordan Chile is. I came to exude it in a way to understand, like look no matter what I doing no matter what I’m trying to show I’m always going to be authentic to who I am. So, I think it’s really cool that being able to change the culture is like saying ‘Simone changed the game’, people say this all the time.” [6:37 onwards]

The gymnast further added,

“Simone [Biles] changed the game, Jordan changed the culture and I think it’s really cool that I had this opportunity to do that, definitely am proud of myself of understanding who I am as a person and that I get to show that to the younger generation.”

Jordan Chiles and Simone Biles won big at the Paris Olympics, sharing five medals between them. Biles also backed her fellow gymnast during the floor exercise finals’ controversy, following which Jordan Chiles’ bronze medal was revoked.