Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles will tell the story of her life and career in a new memoir, People magazine reports.
Harper Influence will publish I’m That Girl: Living the Power of My Dreams, co-written by Felice Laverne, in the spring. The press describes the book as an “inspiring memoir chronicling her unlikely path to the podium—including the unprecedented challenges, the joy of winning, the crushing pain of defeat, and the love and support of her devoted family and teammates that helps her stay strong.”
Chiles, an Oregon native, joined the UCLA gymnastics team in 2021, after being part of the U.S. women’s team that won a silver medal in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. She temporarily left the school to prepare for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, where she was a member of the U.S. team that won a gold medal.
She initially won a bronze medal in the individual floor exercise competition in the Paris games but was stripped of it after an appeal from Romania challenging how two of its athletes had been scored by judges.
In her book, Harper Influence says, Chiles “digs deep, sharing the story of her life’s challenges—the racism she encountered as a gifted Black girl in a predominantly white elite sport, the childhood coach who called her fat and led her to develop eating issues, the grueling practices, the injuries, the moments of nearly calling it quits.”
I’m That Girl, which features a foreword by fellow gymnast Simone Biles, is scheduled for publication on March 4, 2025.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
