Jordan Chiles says Olympic gymnastics controversy took away ‘the recognition of who I was’

For 14 seconds, Jordan Chiles paused and looked down to collect her thoughts and emotions.

The question — about what Chiles felt she lost when the International Olympic Committee stripped her of her bronze medal in the Olympic women’s gymnastics floor exercise — forced her to stop mid-answer. The audience at the Forbes Power Women’s Summit in New York applauded her as she regrouped and held the microphone back up to her mouth.

Holding back tears, Chiles said she lost more than a bronze medal through the controversy that dominated the end of last month’s Paris Games. The controversy “wasn’t about the medal,” she said, but other realities that made her feel “stripped.”

“The biggest thing that was taken from me was the recognition of who I was, not just my sport, but the person I am,” Chiles said.

“It’s about my skin color,” Chiles added. “It’s about the fact there were things that have led up to this position of being an athlete.”

The on-stage interview Wednesday — which occurred before Chiles appeared at MTV’s Video Music Awards at night — marked the gymnast’s most extensive comments since the IOC said it would reallocate Chiles’ bronze to Romania’s Ana Bărbosu following an appeal by the Romanian Gymnastics Federation.

At the floor…