"Skinny girls white blonde ponytails"- Jordan Chiles opens up about breaking the typical 'gymnast' stereotype

Olympic champion gymnast Jordan Chiles recently opened up about breaking the typical 'gymnast' stereotype. Chiles had attended a podcast session with American actress Keke Palmer for her show 'Baby, this is Keke Palmer'.

During the podcast session, Jordan Chiles opened up about her gymnastics career, as well as the stereotypes she had to endure during the early stages of her career. Chiles also talked about how she didn't fit the 'requirements' of a typical gymnast.

Jordan Chiles further elaborated on this point during the podcast session with Palmer. She mentioned,

"So it, there's a typical way of how gymnasts were supposed to be, and it was, you know, skinny girls, white, blonde ponytails. And so it just to her, I guess it didn't look like professional." [23:05 onwards]

Keke Palmer agreed to her views as she added,

"So yet again, another form of racism, microaggressive, subtle"

In the aforementioned interview, Jordan Chiles also talked about her how coach initially struggled to accept her, because of her mother's complexion. In her words,

"Actually, it's actually in my book, my coach didn't believe my mom was my mom because I was black, but my mom's Latin. So it's like when she came and picked me up or something, my coach was like, that's not your mom. Why can't that be my mom? Like I'm my mix. It's my mama. And she's like, I have no other mother." [10:54 onwards]

Jordan Chiles was born to Timothy Chiles, who is an African-American by descent, and Gina Valesquez [now Chiles], who is of Latin American origin.

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When Jordan Chiles talked about balancing academics and her performance at Dancing with the Stars

Jordan Chiles and Ezra Sosa performing at the UCLA Pauley Pavilion [Image Source : Getty]

Jordan Chiles previously opened up about balancing her studies at the UCLA along with her performance at the 34th season of 'Dancing with the Stars'. Chiles has teamed up with choreographer Ezra Sosa for this season.

In her conversation the UCLA's newsroom portal, the gymnast mentioned,

"This quarter, I told my coaches and my academic counselor, 'Hey, can we make sure everything is online? Because that’s going to be the easiest for me.' And so, I have all of my stuff online. I’ve just been trying to make sure I do as much homework as possible, especially if they’re asynchronous, and I can just kind of go at my own pace. But (balancing it all has) been really fun. It’s my senior year, so I’m trying to enjoy the best of it and just really finish everything out as strongly as possible." (via newsroom.ucla.edu)

Jordan Chiles had previously represented the UCLA Bruins at the NCAA Championships this year. The Olympic champion gymnast had led the Bruins to the finals of the NCAA Championships, where they finished as runners-up.

Edited by Animesh Pandey