12 Jul Cover Spotlight! Empowerment Through Athletics (ETA) Presented By Spieth: Jordan Chiles Is THAT GIRL
Inside Gymnastics, in partnership with Spieth, is pleased to present the Empowerment Through Athletics (ETA) series! Through ETA, we will spotlight athletes making their mark on and off the competition floor. Our first featured athlete was Team USA’s own Leanne Wong, aka The CEO, who is now a five-time World medalist! We continued the series with one of the most outstanding athlete ambassadors of all time, four-time Olympian and nine-time World Championship competitor for Canada, Ellie Black, and following the 2025 World Championships, we profiled fan-favorite Emma Malabuyo, who beautifully overcame all odds in the sport to succeed on the National, NCAA, World, and Olympic stage!
This month, we’re featuring our most recent Inside Gymnastics magazine cover star, Jordan Chiles! While she isn’t on the roster for this week’s U.S. Classic, Chiles told us she hasn’t ruled out a try at a third Olympic Games. She has a timeline she said, but isn’t quite ready to share it. What she was ready to share was great perspective on her career to date, and what means the most.
what jordan chiles wants you to know most
“I definitely think about what 25-year-old Jordan is going to do, one hundred percent,” Jordan Chiles ponders as she eyes the future. “I’m just so much in my peace era and still navigating coming off of the NCAA season, and everything else [in my world]. I try to stay in the present as best as possible because those memories are things that I’ll forever cherish.”
Reflective of the past with an eye on the future, but fully living in the present with a newfound appreciation of all the sport of gymnastics and all life has to offer, Chiles is a generational athlete who is inspiring so many, well beyond the confines of sport. Wise beyond her years, she’s an Olympic gold medalist, an NCAA Champion, a New York Times Best-Selling author and a pop culture icon. She’s lived an epic journey full of more adventures than most have in a lifetime.
After a whirlwind two years since the Paris Olympics where the world got to know her name and her story, what Chiles wants you to know most is that she’s just now truly coming to terms with all she’s accomplished. And perhaps her greatest achievement is reaching that mental state where she knows that anything that comes next—inside or outside the gym—is squarely on her terms. It’s what’s driving the next chapter in her life.
Whether that’s pursuing the road to LA or not, she’s keeping that close. For now. For all she’s achieved, her “That Girl” era is far from over. It might just look a little different. As passionate as ever about life and being there for the next generation in her sport, she thrives on being a role model and entrepreneur, with her eyes on where she can make the most positive impact.
Chiles has always created a special energy and aura wherever she finds herself. It’s one of the things fans and journalists love most about her. She’s always up for a conversation, always full of life and energy, and always ready to surprise you with just how candid she can be sometimes. As women continue to find their voices in sports around the globe, Chiles is no exception. She’s in demand. And she loves it.
In the last two months, she’s been everywhere. From walking the red carpet at the American Music Awards to performing on the Dancing with the Stars tour, and gracing the cover of Modeliste Magazine in a stunning photo shoot, the two-time Olympian and three- time Olympic medalist, four-time NCAA event champion, and 2026 AAI Award winner was recently named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential list. She’s also one of only four women to claim Olympic, World, and NCAA Championship titles.
“I’m just very honored and happy that I have all these opportunities and that I have such an amazing team who understands what I am trying to do within my life, what I’m trying to present to the world, the community, and just really enjoy the years that I’ve had,” she told me.
Fresh off a vacation in Fiji when we chatted, we caught up on everything from the beginning of the “That Girl” era circa 2024, our conversation at a National Team Camp six months prior to Paris and how very quickly everything changed for her following that competition, to what means the most to her now in this moment. Her sentiment was very clear. For everything she’s done, for even the difficult moments, she’s so grateful for all of it.
“I’ve done so much within my career, but yet it still doesn’t feel like I’ve done enough,” she said. “I know that’s probably crazy to say, but for me, there’s just been so many things that I’ve been so thankful for. Whether it’s recognition from TIME100, going to the AMAs, even being on “Dancing with the Stars” and finding myself differently, I’m just very honored and happy that I have all these opportunities. We’re two years off of Paris, and it’s just crazy to know that two years ago I was at an Olympic Games. I still haven’t really even processed that. When people say, ‘Yeah, you’ve gone to two Olympics,’ that’s still crazy to me. Everything that has come from that and that I’ve been able to do, I’ve just really indulged in. I think that’s like my biggest thing. Peace and having fun.”
Thinking about her younger self, it’s always been about learning to believe in herself, Chiles said. And she’s applying that now to her post-NCAA career coupled with a new perspective she didn’t recognize before. “This next phase, or really the phase that I’m in, is understanding that the younger me didn’t believe she could become who she is today. She thought she would be somebody, but she didn’t believe she could be the person she is now. Life is something that you only have once. The world that we live in, the society that we live in, it’s already difficult. So enjoy it as best as possible. And just be you. Shine bright. Enjoy every moment that you have with friends, family, and supporters.”
As an NCAA student-athlete competing for UCLA, Chiles has been a trailblazer in the sport, one of only a handful from the U.S. to have competed both NCAA and Elite gymnastics simultaneously and to have gone to an Olympic Games in the process. While she may still be most well-known to every- four-year fans for the floor bronze medal she won in Paris, that medal was no sooner stripped away when The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled she had not challenged an error in her score in time. Chiles, despite all of the heartache she felt and inevitable mental toll, took the high road. (In January, on an ongoing appeal, the highest court in Switzerland, where the International Olympic Committee is based, ruled in her favor, declaring the arbitration court had to re-hear her case.)
“This case is bigger than one competition or one result,” she wrote for TIME following the court’s decision. “It is about trust. Athletes give everything to their sport. Our bodies. Our time. Our youth. We deserve a system that treats us with the same respect and seriousness that it demands from us.”
By Chiles’ side, for all of it, has been an unwavering support system—her family, friends, and the love from her UCLA family. She admires the new culture Head Coach Janelle McDonald has created, with deep respect to Valorie Kondos Field as well. She says, “I think it’s just crazy to see the change that Janelle has done within UCLA Gymnastics. Val did so much to make UCLA Gymnastics the best show in LA, and having Janelle be able to take that and make sure that that was always going to be something that needed to still be recognized, it’s just amazing to me. Each and every athlete that she brings on has their own role. To have their own opportunity to be who they are, she understands that. I wouldn’t have changed those three years with her.
“To be able to indulge in other things business-wise, red carpet-wise, “Dancing with the Stars”-wise, during that time, it was just such an amazing experience. I think having the support system made it even better because I knew since I had my teammates’ back, they had mine.”
Learning to lean into her voice and trust it has been a process, and an awakening. Having grown up in the sport in an era that is still evolving and very much healing, Chiles wants every young athlete to use their voice, trust themselves, and feel beautiful while doing so. It’s something she didn’t always feel coming up through the ranks as an Elite.
“I don’t want the next generation to go in feeling like they can’t use their voice, that they can’t express themselves, that they don’t feel beautiful, that they can’t be themselves because that’s not true. You have a name for yourself. God gave it to you for a reason. Make a name for who you are. Go bigger, go greater, do what you have to do. I think that’s kind of how I put myself in every situation, whether it’s something new that I’m like, ‘You know what, this has never been done. Let’s try it. Let’s see what happens.’”
At the end of the day, Chiles’ message of inspiration to her future self, her fans, aspiring athletes—anyone—is simple: “If you do a sport, go enjoy that. Whether you’re not even doing a sport and you’re reading this, enjoy every piece of your life because that is what makes your chapter so special and unique.
“To be in my “That Girl” era has been remarkable,” she continued. “It’s been something that I get to tell my kids one day, ‘Hey, your mom had this era that was so magnificent that people were just in awe of her.’ Continue to be you, continue to indulge in every moment that you have, and trust your process.”
Whether or not the chalk has settled on her gymnastics career is her call. After all, she knows herself better than anyone. She wants to make sure everything aligns if she pursues a third Olympic Games.
“The biggest thing right now is just making sure my body and my mind are okay,” she said. “As an athlete, I think any of us can say yes, of course we’re going to be there 100%. It’s important our body and mind correlate to show we’re confident when we’re going to go into the next chapter. I did give myself a deadline on when I would decide. So it’s not a yes, it’s not a no.”
Which brings us back to the beginning, the next two years, and her resolve to continue telling her story in her own way. Dreams of LA? Maybe. We’ll have to wait and see, she says. She loves flipping the script, and we’re always right here for it. “Trust your process. Trust the way that you get to see your life,” she said. “It’s your story, your narrative. Write your own book. Do what you have to do.”
What a story it would be to see her on the Olympic stage one more time, embracing an era and a new generation of athletes she helped create, and lighting up the arena in a way only “That Girl” can.
Photos by Ricardo Bufolin and Lloyd Smith for Inside Gymnastics
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