“I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse… [The USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee] “knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.”
Teary-eyed Simone Biles in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September of 2021. Pictured above.
It’s just the most glaring example of the physical and sexual abuse endured by elite athletes competing in high school, college, league, national and international sports. Young competitors are belittled, often punched, slapped or kicked, and as the above quote suggests, sexually abused – from unwarranted touching to so much more. Such abusers range from fellow athletes to coaches, trainers and team doctors… and the shocking reality is how many participants are in such athletic programs with serial abuse… and choose to keep their mouths shut for fear of losing opportunities to advance in a world of sports program supervisors seemingly linked in a vow of silence to even the most obvious criminal activities. Even for those athletes who advance to elite championship status, the emotional scares are all but impossible to erase.
Let’s start with horrific events that elicited Ms Biles’ testimony quoted above. “Female athletes have stated they complained to authorities – including various employees at Michigan State University – about [team doctor and athletic trainer, Larry] Nassar's behavior starting in at least 1997, with some athletes stating abuse occurred in 1994 but USA Gymnastics did not take action against him until 2015. According to court filings and interviews, Maggie Nichols and her coach, Sarah Jantzi, reported Nassar to USA Gymnastics officials on June 17, 2015, after the coach overheard Nichols and another gymnast talking about Nassar's behavior.
“In September 2016, USA Gymnastics cut ties with Nassar ‘after learning of athlete concerns’. On September 20, 2016, The Indianapolis Star had reported that Rachael Denhollander and another former gymnast had accused Nassar of sexual abuse. After having been reassigned from clinical and teaching duties in August, Nassar was fired by Michigan State University on September 20, 2016.
“Lawrence Gerard Nassar (born August 16, 1963) is an American serial child rapist and former family medicine physician. From 1996 to 2014, he was the team doctor of the United States women's national gymnastics team, where he used his position to exploit and sexually assault hundreds of young athletes as part of the largest sexual abuse scandal in sports history.
“In 2016, Nassar was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting at least 265 young women and girls under the guise of medical treatment. His victims included numerous Olympic and United States women's national gymnastics team gymnasts… Nassar was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison on December 7, 2017, after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography and tampering with evidence on July 11, 2017. On January 24, 2018, Nassar was sentenced to an additional 40 to 175 years in Michigan State Prison, after pleading guilty in Ingham County to seven counts of sexual assault. On February 5, 2018, he was sentenced to an additional 40 to 125 years in Michigan State Prison after pleading guilty to an additional three counts of sexual assault in Eaton County.” Wikipedia.
The system did not out Nassar, who was abusing in plain site; it took an exposé in The Indianapolis Star. It would be shocking, even if this were a rare and isolated incident. But although happening less frequently today, it is and was anything but rare. Writing on behalf of the Yale University School of Public Health on July 29th, particularly referencing that University’s Sports Equity Lab and its recent report, Matt Kristoffersen says: “A former Ghanaian track star who founded the Sports Equity Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, Tuakli-Wosornu [MD, PhD] leads an interdisciplinary group of students, faculty, and scholars whose research has addressed some of the most important challenges facing athletes today.
Her team’s most recent report, Policy and Legal Frameworks for Preventing Interpersonal Violence in Elite Sport, suggests that a commitment to athlete-centered sports governance among major sports organizations is essential to protecting athletes from the harmful interactions that can uniquely arise in sports settings. The report was produced in collaboration with the Global Health Justice Partnership, an initiative of the Yale Law School and Yale School of Public Health, and the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale… ‘We need to flip the script,’ Tuakli-Wosornu said. ‘We must start from the perspectives and experiences of athletes, because at the end of the day, they're the experts and most valuable people on any sports field. Nothing happens if we don't lace up. Nothing happens if we don't show up for practice or competition.’..
“The inherent power imbalance between many athletes and the authority figures in their sports can lead to a variety of abuses ranging from physical, financial, and sexual to psychological and emotional, the report states. It can also foster unfair working conditions that breach international standards. The existing structures of sports organizations make it difficult for athletes to bring negative experiences forward, exacerbating their feelings of disempowerment, the report states.
“The International Olympic Committee and other bodies need to be reformed, Tuakli-Wosornu said, because they remain largely institution-centered, untouchable by public law regimes, and often use internal arbitration methods to settle disputes. By using well-documented public health practices such as implementation science, trauma- and violence-informed practice, and community engagement, sports organizations can better translate research findings into real-life applications, humanely engage athletes, and prioritize qualitative data to better understand athletes’ real concerns. By doing this, Tuakli-Wosornu and her team believe the current hierarchy of sport organizations can be improved so that athletes’ needs and experiences are prioritized.”
Even today, the hierarchies in sports, very much including the various Olympic governing bodies, have a horrendous tradition of looking the other way, even as the physical and psychological damage inflicted on athletes linger for years, if not forever. Simone Biles’ “timeout for mental reassessment,” as she dropped out of the last Summer Olympics, is the clearest example of the lasting trauma of this abuse-followed-by-silence syndrome. She certainly came back strongly this summer… as her medal count mounted… but her message reverberated across the Olympic Village… and to the training facilities of young athletes everywhere.
I’m Peter Dekom, and all young athletes deserve safety and integrity in their training and competitions… and we can and must do so much better.
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