New faces are joining the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit roster. This week, the magazine announced that Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles will be one of the many star athletes featured in the 2025 SI Swimsuit issue.
“We are thrilled to launch our shoot season for the 2025 issue with an extraordinary lineup of powerful female athletes,” Editor-in-Chief MJ Day shared in a statement. “This remarkable group, featuring Olympic medalists, world champions, and record holders, embodies the next generation of all-stars poised to transform the world of sports. They defy stereotypes and champion equality, inspiring young girls to envision themselves as both athletes and leaders.”
Chiles will be featured alongside her gymnastic teammate, Suni Lee, fellow Olympian Gabby Thomas and more. Sneak-peek images photographed by Ben Horton show Chiles striking a mid-air pose in a turquoise blue one-piece swimsuit as her hair flows in the wind.
The 23-year-old gymnast caught the spotlight at the 2024 Paris Olympics as part of the victorious U.S. women’s gymnastics team that secured the gold medal. In addition to helping Team USA win a gold medal, Chiles was part of the first all-Black Olympic gymnastics podium, receiving the bronze title, where she stood alongside Rebecca Antrade and Simone Biles, who won the gold and silver medals in the women’s floor exercise final.
Leading up to that historic moment, Chiles’s coach, Cecile Landi, submitted an on-floor appeal, which led to her bronze medal win. However, shortly afterward the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) annulled her coach’s initial appeal, arguing that it arrived four seconds late beyond the one-minute time frame to raise scoring inquiries. Since then, the title was reallocated to Romanian gymnast Ana Barbosu, and Chiles and her attorneys have since filed an appeal to the CAS ruling.
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“Honestly, it’s been really, really hard just to comprehend everything that’s been happening,” Chiles said in an interview with the Today Show. “It’s been a difficult time for [me] and I’m ready to speak my truth.”
In her first television interview since being stripped of her bronze medal, the Olympian explained how hard it’s been to tell herself “everything is going to be fine” knowing she and her team “literally didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Everything was in the time that it needed to be,” she added, explaining how she and her team have proof the inquiry was done in time. “I can only control what my truth is, and I know that we were right.”
Though the gymnast left Paris with a team gold medal, she explained that the floor bronze medal had an extra special meaning.
“It was like a cherry on top,” she explained. “With this floor medal, it was like, ‘wow,’ I never expected myself to make a floor final…Plus, it was an all-Black podium. That was history [being] made. I was very proud to be a part of…it was something I’ll always remember.”
While she and her legal team wait to see the outcome of their appeal, Chiles is not letting the situation dim her light. From walking in New York Fashion Week to touring with teammate Simone Biles, the Olympian is embracing the controversial ruling as part of her journey.
“I made history and I’ll always continue to make history,” said as previously reported by theGrio.
