Jordan Chiles’ parents, as any loving mom and dad would, have been cheering their daughter on at the Paris Olympics. When she completed a spectacular floor routine, the camera cut to them overcome with emotion—It was truly touching.
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Born on April 15, 2001, Jordan, like most gymnasts, began competing from an early age. “My parents could not keep me from cartwheeling down the aisle of any open space or walking on my hands instead of my feet,” she explained on the Team USA Gymnastics website. “People kept asking if I was in gymnastics. I had a lot of energy! So they put me in gym.”
Gina and Timothony Chiles, Jordan’s parents, are pastors at the According to His Word Worship Center, which was founded in 2007 in Vancouver, Washington by Jordan’s grandfather. They have five kids together: daughters Jazmin, Jade, and Jordan, and sons Tajmen and Tyrus. They also have six grandchildren.
Gina Chiles named her daughter, Jordan, after basketball legend, Michael Jordan. “She felt the inspiration that he gave to her, and that was just a really huge and beautiful thing,” the Olympian told People in 2023. “She just decided, ‘You know what? I’m going to make my child after him and see where life takes her.’”
There was a time when Jordan was considering dropping out of gymnastics altogether. In a life-changing move, Gina moved with her daughter to Spring, Texas, to train with Simone Biles at the World Champions Centre, leaving Timothy and the four other children at home in Washington.
“She’s literally the life of me. I love her to death,” Jordan told NBC Sports of her mother in 2021. “She’s my best friend. I can’t thank her enough for everything that she’s done for me and the love and support that she’s given is 1,000 percent out of this world.”
Gina is also a children’s author. In 2018, she wrote a book about her youngest child called Dream Big Little Chick which was published in 2020 and featured a main character with their daughter’s nickname. “It was based on Jordan, but I was really thinking of little kids that had their own dream. Especially when things didn’t always seem like it could happen,” Gina told NBC Sports.
Timothy Chiles isn’t hugely active on social media, but he’s been a fixture on the sidelines cheering his daughter on. According to his pastor bio, he goes by Tim, and “traveled the nation ministering alongside his father in various churches and tent revivals.”
If you ask his daughter, Tim is “the person I need in the toughest moments because he has a way of comforting me when I feel overwhelmed. There is nothing like the arms of my dad to make me feel like everything will somehow be okay,” she said in an interview with People.
