Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu is refusing to attend the closing ceremony of the Olympics in protest at the women's floor exercise final earlier this week, in which two Romanian gymnasts failed to medal.

Ciolacu said in a statement on Wednesday that Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea were treated "in an absolutely unfair way" by the judges in the floor final. Barbosu finished fourth in a stunning turn of events involving American gymnast Jordan Chiles' routine, and Maneca-Voinea was penalized 1 point for leaving the floor exercise mat, although it did not appear she actually stepped out of line.

It was Barbosu's experience that particularly rankled Ciolacu. The Romanian gymnast appeared to have sealed the bronze medal after Chile finished her routine, the last of the day.

The American gave everything she had in her performance and barely made a mistake, but the score came in at 13.666, good enough for fifth place. Her trainers filed a motion to contest the difficulty score given to her by the judges and won. She added 0,1 points to her score to finish with 13,766, good enough for the bronze medal.

That difference in the result was enough to push Barbosu off the podium and leave him in fourth place, a result as disappointing for the Romanian as it was exciting for Chile.

Ciolacu said that the measure was unacceptable.

"I decided not to participate in the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris, after the scandalous situation in gymnastics, where our athletes were treated in an absolutely dishonest way. To withdraw a medal earned with honest work on the basis of an appeal, which neither the coaches nor the senior technicians understand, is completely unacceptable," he said.

"It is unacceptable that, in a competition of this magnitude, which promotes values ​​such as respect, understanding and excellence, a girl who had honestly won her medal should be brutally stripped of the result of her work of four years! I couldn't look at her tears and calmly accept that this is completely normal!”

He added, "And the fact that hundreds of millions of viewers from all over the world were shocked, like us Romanians, effectively by this terrible scene, shows that somewhere, in the system of organizing this competition, something is wrong."

Chiles later said post-competition exhaustion had set in when she saw her score flashed on the big screen at Bercy Arena. She hadn't even realized her coaches were challenging the score.

"I was so tired, I didn't even realize my coaches were investigating and I said, 'OK, yeah, let's see, it might change,'" she told reporters.

"So when it was done, I was very proud of myself. You know, it's my first [individual] event final and my first event medal, something like that is unbelievable. So I was very proud of myself."

Inside or outside?

The Maneca-Voinea situation was less dramatic, but is also being criticized by Romanians.

The gymnast was penalized for leaving the mat during the floor exercise, but the video did not appear to show her actually stepping outside the lines.

The Romanian Gymnastics Federation submitted a request to the International Gymnastics Federation for a detailed analysis of why the penalty was assessed.

"Sabrina was penalized a tenth of a point for a hypothetical exit from the mat, which may prove to be an error in judgment," said a statement from the Romanian foundation.

"At the same time, the FRG has requested that, in the spirit of transparency, the detailed analysis and reasoning for the 9 gymnasts participating in the floor final be made public, in order to give an official answer to the gymnasts, the Romanian gymnastics community, governmental and state authorities, as well as national and international media."/CNN