By Peter Carlisle
August 15, 2025
One year ago, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) issued its written decision stripping American gymnast Jordan Chiles of her Olympic bronze medal. She appealed, but not to a court that can reexamine the facts, law, or reasoning. Under the rules governing Olympic disputes, the Swiss Federal Tribunal (SFT) can do none of that. Because the SFT’s review is so limited, most of the problems with CAS’s handling of the arbitration are not, and cannot be, part of her appeal.
The Agreement No Athlete Can Refuse
Like every Olympic athlete, Chiles was required to sign an agreement before competing that sends all disputes to CAS and declares its rulings “final and binding.” There is no negotiation and little, if any, substantive review by athletes before signing. The effect is to make CAS’s decisions the last word.
Under Swiss law, the SFT’s review is restricted to certain enumerated procedural violations severe enough to undermine the integrity of the entire process. Facts and legal conclusions are off-limits. Because CAS is legally seated in Switzerland, these constraints apply to every Olympic dispute from the start.
Why Athletes Have No Safety Net
In most legal systems, appeals act as a safeguard. In the United States, for example, appellate courts can correct serious legal errors even while deferring to trial courts on factual findings. They are not bound to accept flawed reasoning.
Under the current system governing Olympic disputes, there is no such safety net. Once CAS rules, the decision is almost impossible to change, even if the facts were misapplied or the law stretched beyond recognition.
Europe Pushes Back on CAS Autonomy
This “final and binding” model is now facing new pressure. In a landmark ruling, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that CAS awards can be reviewed by national courts within the EU when they implicate public policy under EU law.
The ECJ made clear that sports arbitration cannot strip away fundamental rights such as the right to a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal, and the right to have all relevant facts and laws considered. Those protections, guaranteed by Article 47 of the EU Charter, are incompatible with an arbitration process insulated from meaningful judicial oversight.
A System without Real Accountability
In response to the ECJ ruling, CAS noted that only six percent of its decisions are appealed to the SFT. That figure says more about the futility of the process than its fairness when the reviewing court cannot meaningfully review the case. Of the approximately 100 CAS awards reviewed between 2020 and 2023, the SFT set aside only three.
The ECJ’s decision is a warning to sports governing bodies: mandatory arbitration should not be a shield against accountability. Unless the IOC reforms the “final and binding” structure it imposes on athletes, those outside the EU will remain bound to a system that prizes speed and uniformity over fairness and effective judicial protection. Until that changes, cases like Jordan Chiles’ won’t be outliers. They’ll be the rule.
With the United States hosting the Olympics in 2028, the question is whether U.S. courts will have the opportunity to insist on a system that provides sufficient oversight to ensure justice for athletes. For a detailed analysis on the CAS proceedings in the Chiles case, see my article, Judicial Alchemy: How Cascading Procedural Procedural Failures Upended The Jordan Chiles Arbitration & Rewrote Olympic History, published in the Arizona State Sports & Entertainment Law Journal, Volume 14, Issue 2 (Spring 2025).
Reformed Sports Project 
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