The newspaper's investigation determined that the U.S.A. Gymnastics—the governing body that's responsible for stewarding gymnasts through maturity to their gold medal dreams—failed to report allegations of sexual assault by coaches to the authorities on at least four occasions.
Published online Thursday, the investigation found several instances of gymnastics officials being warned about the suspected abuse of young gymnasts by certain coaches. Not only does it claim that the suspicions were not reported to the authorities (as is required by state law in Indiana, where U.S.A. Gymnastics is based), it says they allegedly went ignored by the organization. The suspected coaches are said to have went on to abuse at least 14 underage gymnasts.
One of the four cases published in the report involved allegations against the 2010 National Women’s Coach of the Year, Marvin Sharp (who committed suicide in jail shortly after he was charged for sex abuse crimes in federal court). It says that U.S.A. Gymnastics received a complaint about him back in 2011 but didn’t report him to the authorities until they received another complaint about him four years later. The other three cases follow a similar pattern: U.S.A. Gymnastics allegedly received a complaint of sexual abuse, recorded it in an internal file, and did nothing until the accusations got much worse.
USAGym.org, the organization that trained Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, and Simone Biles, released a statement addressing the allegations on Thursday, saying they believe the Star left out many of their efforts and that “U.S.A. Gymnastics has, in the strongest terms, encouraged anyone who believes abuse has occurred to contact law enforcement and frequently works with law enforcement on these matters.”
As we cheer on Biles and her fellow Olympians in Rio this week, this report will undoubtedly make many people question the ethics of the organization responsible for turning young gymnasts into competitors for Team U.S.A.
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