Kitty Chiller to remain at National Sports Tribunal despite international sanction for false statement

Previously unpublished reasons behind disciplinary charges and sanctions brought against former Gymnastics Australia Chief Executive Kitty Chiller by the Gymnastics Ethics Foundation (GEF) have been revealed.

Chiller, who is also a member of the Australian Olympic Committee executive, was sanctioned in June last year for her role in “judging irregularities” at an Olympic qualification event in 2021 and banned from representing international gymnastic bodies for two years.

The Swiss-based Foundation, established to safeguard the integrity of the sport, published its reasons for its move this week after Chiller abandoned an appeal.

The violations related to a judging controversy that saw gymnast Lidiia Iakovleva narrowly beating Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva in the individual competition at the 2021 Oceania Continental Championships, which served as a qualifying event for the Tokyo Olympics.

Gymnastics Australia previously noted on its website a "technical irregularity" affected the event.

The Foundation revealed that Chiller had provided a false sworn statement to the Court of Arbitration for Sport about her role in a judging at the event.

Held on the Gold Coast at a time when Australia’s closed international borders and interstate travel restrictions made it difficult for find international-standard gymnastics judges, the dispute centred on the qualification of two Australian judges who officiated and their decision to re-score a routine which relegated Kiroi-Bogatyreva to second place in the final standings and out of the Tokyo team.

When Kiroi-Bogatyreva protested the result, the routines were rejudged on the basis of video footage recorded on an iPad. The final standings were confirmed by the review.

The GEF panel’s published reasons examine multiple breaches of International Gymnastics Federation rules, the failure of event organisers to consult with the FIG and a misleading statement which Chiller provided to an earlier CAS hearing about her attempts to secure a more qualified judge.

The panel accepted Chiller’s evidence that she did not knowingly or intentionally provide a false statement. However, it found that her mistake was to accept at face value what another official told her “in violation of the diligence and care” required when providing sworn evidence.

The panel rejected a claim of deliberate sabotage against Kiroi-Bogatyreva but found that the departure from international judging norms at such a consequential event had the potential to damage the sport.

It concluded “it is of utmost importance that the gymnasts and public can trust that a competition that decides on an Olympic qualification is in line with important FIG rules on how to judge such a competition.

“Losing qualification due to these circumstances can also be traumatic for the gymnast concerned. The seriousness of the situation goes far beyond a mere technical violation.”

Despite her two-year ban, Chiller, a member of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) board and current Deputy Chief Executive of the National Sports Tribunal, the Federal Government-funded body which arbitrates team selections and other sporting disputes has shown no indication that she will step down from these roles.

As of yesterday she was reported as saying “I continue to strongly maintain that the acknowledged technical irregularities (largely precipitated and caused by the difficulty in staging an event during COVID) in no way warranted even the very minor sanction imposed.

“I therefore appealed against the findings, because in my view they ran contrary to the facts found by the Panel as to the circumstances in which the technical irregularity occurred.”

Claiming that she took the decision to abandon her appeal on medical grounds after she survived a heart attack late last year, Chiller (pictured) added “the appeal withdrawal is not in any way an admission or concession of the merits of the underlying legal and factual arguments.”

The rhythmic gymnast who missed out on the Tokyo Games as a consequence of the judging fiasco, Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva, won a Gold and Silver medal at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

An AOC spokesman said the previous Olympic trials were a “difficult time” for all athletes trying to qualify for Tokyo and Chiller would continue to her role as a “highly valued member of the AOC executive.”