While fashion and gymnastics are two different worlds of their own, they have been known to cross paths every now and then. From the iconic Florence Griffith-Joyner to today’s Sha’Carri Richardson, athletes often turn to fashion to make themselves stand out from the rest of the pack. For Olympian and World Championships gold medalist Jordan Chiles, too, the way she looks while in action isn’t something to be ignored.

In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar published on July 15, Chiles talked about how she embraced and incorporated fashion extensively in her routines ever since she learned about the power it holds. “One thing about beauty is … I had to get taught to embrace it when I was younger,” said the gymnast about how her makeup is never off-point.

Chiles, who is about to make an appearance in her second Olympic Games in Paris, also noted how dressing up and doing her makeup was something she found to be “fun“. The 23-year-old confessed: “It shows a different side of me.” The UCLA Bruins star also stated that going to a school where she was in the minority also gave her the opportunity to embrace her identity and style herself. “I went to a predominantly white school growing up, so I was a typical Black girl thinking she was white. I had to be able to figure out how to embrace myself and my beauty,” claimed the two-time NCAA Championships gold medalist.

However, for an ardent fan who has followed the career of Chiles closely, seeing the gymnast comfortable in her skin will come as welcome news. For the longest time, the 2023 PanAm Games gold medalist has noted that she found it hard to accept her own appearance.

Jordan Chiles never had it easy

On many previous occasions, Jordan has claimed that during her early days as a gymnast, she faced criticism from her colleagues. Her gaudy looks were there from the beginning and were the very thing that attracted hard comments from her peers, even including her coaches. “I had a coach who verbally abused me and emotionally abused me,” revealed Chiles in an interview with The Squeeze in January this year.

With the constant body shaming, Chiles often felt like disappearing from the crowd because of plummeting self-esteem. “With the body shaming situation I’ve been told I had two heads because of my hair, I look like a sack of potatoes…there were just times where my self-esteem got to point where I didn’t want to be on the Earth anymore,” said Jordan in the same interview. It was probably such kind of demotivating criticism coupled with being left out of the World Championships team despite performing incredibly that made her ponder calling it quits from professional gymnastics in 2018. However, fortunately, it was America’s most decorated gymnast of all time Simone Biles who persuaded Chiles to train with her in Texas, where the former rekindled her passion for the sport.

In June, in an article for Pop Sugar, Jordan also claimed that talking about what she went through helped her to tackle the challenges better. Now that she’s come to terms with how harsh the world can be despite her skills and repeated efforts to bring glory to the nation, will Jordan be able to focus on the upcoming task at hand and prove her worth to be bigger than her critics at the 2024 Paris Games? Only time will tell.