By: Peter Carlisle
The Swiss Federal Supreme Court (SFT or Court) ruling on Jordan Chiles’ appeal confirms a disturbing reality: athletes have almost no recourse even when Olympic arbitrations are seriously flawed.
On appeal, the SFT rejected Chiles’ challenge and declined to set aside the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) award that stripped her of her Olympic bronze medal. Applying the narrow grounds for annulment set out in Article 190(2) of the Swiss Private International Law Act (PILA), the Court accepted the factual record established by CAS, including that the arbitral panel had been properly constituted, that Chiles’ right to be heard had not been violated, and that no defect rising to the level of public policy had been shown. In doing so, the SFT treated the CAS proceeding as legally valid, despite its many procedural defects. The process that stripped Chiles of her medal was upheld as legally sufficient, without the Court addressing those defects.
Chiles asked the Court to confront the fairness of the process that took her medal. It declined. That refusal reflects the limits of review under the current system. CAS enjoys far-reaching independence, while the SFT is left with little room to intervene. Once an Olympic arbitration has concluded, even serious procedural flaws are effectively beyond correction.
Only after rejecting the appeal did the SFT send the case back to CAS, allowing it to reconsider a narrow factual issue based on newly discovered evidence. That remand has been widely described in the media as a victory for Chiles. It is not. Revision does not correct the injustice she suffered. It allows the same tribunal that denied her a fair adjudication to reconsider a narrow factual question under the same interpretation of the rules and without any recourse for Chiles if it errs again.
The remand does not remedy the defects in CAS’s ruling; it preserves the flawed framework that produced them. As argued in Judicial Alchemy: How Cascading Procedural Failures Upended the Jordan Chiles Arbitration and Rewrote Olympic History, the central issue in the Chiles arbitration—the validity of her verbal inquiry—does not turn on timing, and treating new video evidence as decisive only perpetuates the procedural distortions that caused the harm. If Chiles ultimately regains her medal, it will be despite the process, not because it worked.
The SFT upheld the CAS arbitration. The only remaining avenue for Chiles was a limited remand allowing CAS to consider new evidence discovered after its decision. Once CAS has ruled, most procedural failures fall outside any meaningful path to correction under the current system.
For Olympians, this is especially troubling. Event organizers and broadcast partners typically control the evidence that might justify revision, leaving athletes dependent on access they do not control. Whether relief is even possible often turns on resources, connections, and legal help—not on procedural fairness or the merits of the case.
This framework forces international federations to govern defensively, in direct tension with the principle of federation independence. Knowing that CAS may later impose its own interpretations under extreme time pressure, and that courts will not meaningfully intervene, federations are pushed to structure rules not to promote fair competition, but to survive external intrusion.
None of this assumes bad faith by the SFT. Its restraint reflects concerns about institutional competence, arbitral autonomy, and the stability of international sport. But such restraint has serious costs. By declining to confront how Olympic arbitration actually functions, the SFT allows speed and finality to override basic fairness, even when athletes’ careers and reputations are at stake.
The Chiles case shows that justice in the Olympic system depends on chance, resources, and access to evidence after the fact, not on fair procedures. That is not a reliable safeguard, and a framework that occasionally corrects outcomes while refusing to confront how those outcomes are produced undermines confidence in the fairness and integrity of Olympic competition itself.
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Peter Carlisle is a long-time athlete rights advocate who has represented Olympic athletes for more than 25 years. He is the Managing Director of Octagon’s Olympics & Action Sports Division, a lawyer, and a former adjunct professor of sports law.
The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the company, clients, or any other individuals.
