While Jordan Chiles has not revealed any plans to retire from gymnastics yet, she is already securing her future. The 23-year-old gold medalist spoke to PEOPLE about what her life will most likely look like after gymnastics.
“The future is such a huge word, but there are so many things that you can do within that future,” she told the publication.
The Oregon native shared that she plans to go into other creative fields in her next chapter.
“Well, whenever that happens, I’m going to go into real estate,” the gymnast revealed. “I love building. I love being creative. I love seeing things just be designed in different ways. That’s one thing.”
“Do I want to become an actress? 100%. Do I want to sing? Sure. I can say all those things, but in reality, I think it’s just continuing to make a brand for myself and to make sure everybody understands that Jordan Chiles is Jordan Chiles, not just as an athlete, but also as a human,” she added.
She shared that while she measures her success differently now from her younger years, her end result is the same: to help others.
“When I was younger, I thought success was just going to school every day,” Chiles continued. “I was like, ‘Oh yes, I’m successful. I got an A on my test. Yes.’ No, now that I’m older, there’s a lot of things that go into success. You can be successful not only within your brand but also with things that you do around yourself, with people, with jobs, with a career, with hobbies.”
“And also, I still to this day don’t consider myself famous. I don’t consider myself a celebrity. I don’t consider myself anything because I feel like I still have more to do within my community, more to do within myself. I need to mature,” Chiles added. “There’s a lot of things. So yes, I look at success differently.”
Jordan Chiles Opens Up About 2024 Paris Olympics Controversy
Chiles made headlines this summer when she was stripped of her bronze medal in the women’s floor. She later revealed that she still was in possession of the medal despite it being requested it be returned after her appeal that was first accepted and later retracted.
“I have the medal,” she declared on the Nov. 11 episode of “Today” show. “The medal is mine.”
U.S. gymnastics coach Cécile Landi called for an inquiry of the scores, which, after the analysis, made Chiles the bronze medal holder. The rescoring was honored at the time, and Chiles received the bronze medal, making the first all-Black podium in gymnastics history, which included teammate Simone Biles securing silver and Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade on top with gold.
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There was tumultuous back-and-forth between the U.S. defending Chiles and Romania, demanding for the inquiry to be overturned to result in a win for Ana Barbosu. After weeks of turning in evidence and statements from both sides of the issue, it was finalized that Barbosu would be the official bronze medal carrier.
She spoke about how well she is doing emotionally during this time which caused the athlete to choke up.
“I’ve been like, ‘OK, I can’t control what’s happening on the outside. I can only control what my truth is,’” Chiles shared tearing up. “I know what the truth is, and I know that we were right in everything that we were doing.”
However, she is still trying to recover from the controversy and look forward to what’s next.
“L.A. is in and out of my mind,” she asserted. “I think right now I’m just trying to take in what’s happened from Paris and just try to take it day by day.”