The Guardian 17/02/2023
Suzanne Wrack

In the first few months of 2021, 38 former gymnasts, including four former Olympians, announced they intended to take action alleging safeguarding failures, including systemic physical and psychological abuse perpetrated by gymnastics coaches on children as young as six. The case quickly moved to settlement talks but two years later only one has been resolved.

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The Guardian 17/02/2023
Suzanne Wrack

As British Gymnastics grapples with the fallout of the Whyte review, a former gymnast alleging years of sexual assault four decades ago believes children were failed then – and complainants are now

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BBC News 17/02/2022
Natalie Pirks

A survivor of historical child sexual abuse at the hands of a former trampoline coach has accused British Gymnastics of "catastrophic failures" in what she claims is the biggest case of sexual abuse in the governing body's history.

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The Sunday Times 05/11/2022 John Aizelwood

“I grew up in a Soviet training camp,” says Claire Heafford. “But it was in the Home Counties.” Heafford, co-founder of Sunday Times Sportswoman Of The Year Changemaker Award nominees Gymnasts For Change, was an elite gymnast. Like so many other girls, she started young. As a four-year-old (“my mum had enough of me bouncing around”), she joined her local Cambridge club, Homerton. Under the benign tutelage of the revered Trish Maude MBE, Heafford reached the finals of the national tumbling championships. “What an amazing woman. She’s in her 80s now, but she created a very, very positive environment.”

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DAILY MAIL ONLINE 18/10/2022 BRITANNY CHAIN

British Gymnastics will begin naming and shaming banned coaches on a public forum in a bid to help protect athletes. The governing body will implement a host of procedures to prove its commitment to gymnasts' wellbeing and 'move away from prioritising medals'. The 40-point 'Reform '25' plan published on Monday comes after a damning 306-page Whyte Review which detailed 'systemic' emotional and physical abuse of athletes within the organisation. The findings included cases of gymnasts being forced to train on broken bones, sat on by their coaches during stretching sessions and subjected to excessive weight management. Anne Whyte KC referred to gymnasts developing eating disorders described as 'tyranny of the scales' after having their bags searched for food during training sessions.

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EXPRESS AND STAR 18/10/2022

British Gymnastics chief executive Sarah Powell has stressed that success and safeguarding are not mutually exclusive as the governing body plots its path towards regaining the trust of participants and parents in the wake of the damning criticism issued by the Whyte Review in June. Powell says a 40-point ‘Reform ’25’ plan published on Monday will address recommendations made by Anne Whyte KC across four key areas of safeguarding, complaints handling, standards and education, and governance and oversight, and yield tangible evidence of change within the next two years. Whyte’s damning 306-page review accused British Gymnastics of enabling a toxic culture that prioritised profit over the well-being of young athletes, and encouraged an era in which they were subjected to shocking levels of emotional and physical abuse.

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THE TELEGRAPH 18/10/2022 MOLLY MCELWEE

British Gymnastics will begin publishing the names of banned coaches, as part of a 40-point action plan to reform the sport following its abuse scandal. The national governing body has published 'Reform '25' – a two-year overhaul of the sport's culture and practices – in direct response to the Whyte Review, the £3 million inquiry which exposed the extent of physical, emotional and sexual abuse in the sport in June. During that two-year review, Anne Whyte KC took submissions implicating more than 90 gymnastics clubs and 100 coaches and outlined in devastating detail the "culture of abuse" which was allowed to fester in the sport. British Gymnastics' plans to publish a list of banned coaches for the first time is a major step in CEO Sarah Powell's hopes to regain the trust of the gymnastics community and ensure abusive coaches are not able to move around clubs or even other sports unnoticed.

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ITV NEWS 18/10/2022 STEVE SCOTT

British Gymnastics' action plan says there will be "zero tolerance" to abuse of any kind in the future. It follows an ITV News investigation into widespread abuse in the sport, which led to a review into the scandal. The investigation, which began in 2020, led to a 300-page report being published. It described a coach-led culture of fear within British Gymnastics that put glory above athletes' wellbeing which led to gymnasts being subjected to physical and emotional abuse. The ‘Reform ’25’ document has promised “zero tolerance” to cases of abuse, with more transparent complaints procedures and with the names of coaches from now on made available via the governing body’s official website. But it will not list those previously banned even if they still are, and coaches suspended or under investigation will also not be identified.

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SKY NEWS 18/10/2022 ROB HARRIS

British Gymnastics will name coaches who have been banned as part of a response to an investigation exposing the sport's abusive culture. A 40-point action plan is intended by the governing body to create "safe, positive and fair experiences" for gymnasts. It follows more than 400 complaints to the Whyte Review that was published in June and found young gymnasts in Britain had been left humiliated, shamed and permanently psychologically or physically injured. A challenge for gymnastics officials is determining the proportionality of sanctions based on the scale of misconduct - from sexual and physical abuse to bullying and malnutrition. While British Gymnastics will publish lists of banned coaches online, their names will be removed once a punishment has been served. It leaves open the possibility of coaches returning to the sport with athletes and any guardians never knowing about past misconduct.

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BBC SPORT 18/10/2022

British Gymnastics will name banned coaches as part of plans for "zero tolerance on abuse" and putting athlete welfare ahead of winning medals. It follows the Whyte Review which detailed "systemic" issues of physical and emotional abuse in gymnastics, as well as some incidents of sexual abuse. British Gymnastics says it will "break the cycle of poor past practice". It will hire an independent expert to monitor reforms and name coaches serving bans in future on its website. By the end of 2022, the governing body plans to close a rules loophole by broadening the roles that require British Gymnastics membership to include choreographers, physios and masseurs. Earlier this year, British Gymnastics said it was "monitoring" a gymnastics club in Bristol after a former coach, who is no longer permitted to carry out some roles, was hired to work with children.

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The Guardian, Wed 10 Aug 2022

NINO BUCCI

Gymnastics Australia has told child gymnasts who made abuse complaints and their families that they must sign non-disclosure agreements if they wish to take part in a restorative justice process. In a letter sent to the complainants last month, Gymnastics Australia said that, in a bid to “repair relations in the gymnastics community” after the release of a Human Rights Commission investigation that uncovered systematic abuse in the sport, it was holding a series of restorative meetings. “Gymnastics Australia recognises your courage and desire for accountability as someone who raised a complaint,” the letter states. “This is an opportunity to share the experience and for the impacts to be personally acknowledged by a senior representative of Gymnastics Australia, in a meeting led by an experienced and independent restorative facilitator.

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YOU MAGAZINE 31/07/2022

ANNA MOORE

As a damning review reveals the ‘systemic’ abuse within the sport in Britain, one mum tells Anna Moore why her child’s Olympic dreams descended into a nightmare – and how they found the strength to fight back. One day in the early 2010s, back when her daughter Aasha was 11 and an elite gymnast on the GB team, Nikki Kimpton collected her and a friend who was coming for a sleepover from training and asked what they wanted for dinner. The friend suggested a McDonald’s and asked if they could they get it on the way home. ‘We turned off towards McDonald’s when one of the girls spotted their coach driving behind us,’ says Nikki. ‘There was absolute panic. The girls were saying, “She knows we don’t drive this way, she knows where we’re going.” And I’m thinking, “How the hell am I going to explain this?”’

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BBC SPORT 26/06/2022

British Gymnastics said it is "monitoring" a gymnastics club after a former coach who is no longer permitted to carry out some roles was hired to work with children. The body recently admitted full liability in a civil case where a former elite acrobatic gymnast alleged she had suffered abuse from the coach. And it comes after an independent investigation released last week found that physical and emotional abuse within the sport in Britain were "systemic". Eloise Jotischky said Andrew Griffiths subjected her to inappropriate weight management techniques and verbal harassment when he was her coach at Heathrow Gymnastics Club. A settlement was reached and Jotischky received a full apology from the governing body's chief executive.

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THE INDEPENDENT 23/06/2022 JAMIE GARDNER

Gymnastics will not be safe until action has been taken against the perpetrators of the abuse identified by the Whyte Review, Olympic bronze medallist Amy Tinkler has said. The review found athletes were subjected to systemic abuse, and that British Gymnastics enabled a toxic culture where profit and medals were prioritised over safeguarding.Anne Whyte QC identified a reluctance from the governing body to intervene over weight-management techniques, which she described as the “tyranny of the scales”. Tinkler said she was a victim of weight-shaming and, in September 2020, shared an e-mail chain in which her weight was discussed by a coach and a nutritionist.

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THE TELEGRAPH 23/06/2022 TOM MORGAN

Olympic medallist Amy Tinkler has warned British gymnasts will not be safe until authorities act on the damning findings of the Whyte Review into widespread abuse in her sport. In her 306-page report, Anne Whyte QC outlined last week in harrowing detail how gymnasts as young as seven were subjected to terror, intimidation, and, in some cases, sexual abuse. "One wonders how many sporting scandals it will take before the government of the day appreciates it needs to take more action to protect children who participate in sport," Whyte concludes. Tinkler, who claimed a floor exercise bronze at the Rio 2016, said Whyte's findings in relation to weight-management techniques, described as the "tyranny of the scales", had struck a chord.

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THE SUNDAY TIMES 19/06/2022
CLAIRE HEAFFORD

After two years of campaigning for change, I can say, hand on heart, that this week feels like a watershed moment for our sport. The publication of the Whyte Review has brought vindication to athletes and campaigners across the UK and marks the start of a new era in which abusive coaches and negligent leaders in gymnastics can no longer deny wrongdoing or gaslight whistleblowers. Alongside UK Sport, the new chief executive of British Gymnastics (BG), Sarah Powell, has committed to implementing all of Anne Whyte QC’s 17 recommendations. However, the abusive coaching practices identified in the report are so ingrained in the fabric of the elite side that it will take wholesale cultural and procedural change to bring an end to normalised abuse within our sport.

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THE TIMES 18/06/2022
MATT LAWTON AND MARTYN ZIEGLER

The calls for an ombudsman for British sport have intensified with one of the former athletes at the centre of the British Gymnastics abuse scandal saying she would support the creation of such a body. Sources have told The Times that there is a reluctance within government to follow the recommendation of Anne Whyte QC, whose report into systemic abuse within British gymnastics has put pressure on ministers — as well as those who govern sport in the UK — to act. “One wonders how many sporting scandals it will take before the government appreciates it needs to take more action to protect children who participate in sport,” Whyte said in the report. “An ombudsman is an obvious step in the right direction.”

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MAIL ON SUNDAY 18/06/2022 JAMES SHARPE

For many, this is only the start of their journey. The gymnast who asked for a toilet break and was ordered to climb a rope. The crying child in a dunce’s cap. The girls ashamed of their periods. More than 400 people submitted their experiences to the Whyte Review, published last week, two years after the first swathe of gymnasts came forward with 3,800 complaints of abuse. The Whyte Review lays bare the putrid culture of fear and abuse at the heart of British Gymnastics. The ‘tyranny of the scales’. The injuries labelled as weakness. The obsession with weight. The malnourished athletes called fat, forced to hide food in their socks as coaches scoured hotel rooms and travel bags for any sign of crumbs.

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BBC SPORT 17/06/2022
KATIE FALKINGHAM

This week, a damning report led by Anne Whyte QC laid bare "systemic" issues of physical and emotional abuse in gymnastics, as well as some incidents of sexual abuse. The £3m review and its 306-page report detailed incidents of athletes being made to train on broken bones, punished for needing the toilet, sat on by coaches, and subjected to excessive weight management - which left some with eating disorders described as the "tyranny of the scales" by Whyte. The report anonymised the hundreds of athlete submissions it received and did not identify individual coaches. BBC Sport has worked on this story for two years and previously heard first-hand from some of the victims of this abuse, who then became whistleblowers. Here are some of their stories.

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THE DAILY MAIL 17/06/2022
DAVID COVERDALE

The gymnasts whose whistleblowing led to the landmark Whyte Review have warned that their sport cannot move forward until all abusive coaches are rooted out. Anne Whyte QC’s damning 306-page report was released on Thursday, laying bare a systemic culture of physical and emotional abuse in British Gymnastics. However, while more than 100 coaches were implicated in the independent investigation, none were named and many are still working in the system. ‘There are still people in the sport who have been abusive and who have these misguided ideals and problematic behaviours. It is a huge problem,’ said Jennifer McIlveen OLY (née Pinches).

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THE TELEGRAPH 17/06/2022 JENNIFER MCILVEEN

The long-awaited publication of the Whyte Review has evoked mixed feelings in the gymnastics community. There's a huge sense of validation, that our experiences are now written down in black and white and recognised by an independent QC. Relief and vindication, too, that there can be no more denying or disagreeing with the statement that British Gymnastics failed us. A healthy dose of scepticism is there, as we know we have - on some level - been here before, and seen little change. Yet hope, too, that change might finally come for our sport, this time. What we know for certain is that this is far from the end.

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THE INDEPENDENT 17/06/2022
MARK STANIFORTH

British Gymnastics faces a huge task to restore trust and regain credibility after its shortcomings were laid bare in the damning 306-page Whyte Review that was published on Thursday. Anne Whyte QC drew on over 400 testimonies to reveal shocking instances of abuse and systemic failures of governance, centred around the organisation’s prioritising of cash and success over athlete welfare. Despite a “genuine apology” from the new British Gymnastics chief executive Sarah Powell, those affected cast doubts on the ability of British Gymnastics to implement change and said the review did not go far enough.

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THE INDEPENDENT 17/06/2022
JAMIE GARDNER

A survivor of abuse within gymnastics says she still has nightmares about what happened to her as a child and even now feels “terrified” and “physically sick” when she smells the perfume worn by her coaches. Former England gymnast Nicole Pavier provided testimony to the Whyte Review into the mistreatment of athletes within the sport, which was published on Thursday. The Review received over 400 submissions and detailed systemic physical and psychological abuse, which it said centred around British Gymnastics’ prioritising of cash and success over athlete welfare.

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REUTERS 17/06/2022

Former gymnast Nicole Pavier said British athletes were subjected to "child abuse" and that the findings of an independent review showed physical and mental mistreatment at clubs was more widespread than first thought. The review, led by Anne Whyte QC, was commissioned by UK Sport and Sport England in August 2020 following allegations of mistreatment within the sport in Britain. The report found that British gymnastics suffered from a cultural problem where young athletes were shamed for their weight while others were handed harsh punishments for the slightest mistakes in training.

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BBC SPORT 17/06/2022 KATIE FALKINGHAM

Gymnasts have been "heard" and "vindicated" following the release of the report detailing the "systemic" abuse of gymnasts in Britain, says two-time Olympian Becky Downie. The Whyte Review, released on Thursday, heard from athletes who were made to train on broken bones, punished for needing the toilet, sat on by coaches, and subjected to excessive weight management. In 2020, Downie and younger sister Ellie said abusive behaviour in gymnastics training became "ingrained" and "completely normalised".

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THE EVENING STANDARD 17/06/2022 MALIK OUZIA

The recommendations made by a damning report into widespread abuse in British Gymnastics “fall far short of what is needed”, a leading campaign group have said.The 306-page Whyte Review, released yesterday, exposed a “culture of fear” in which children as young as seven were subjected to “systemic” physical and emotional abuse, as the organisation ruthlessly prioritised medals over the welfare of athletes. Anne Whyte QC’s £3million review, commissioned in 2020 after numerous reports of abuse emerged in the media, received more than 400 submissions from individuals at every level of the sport, from grassroots to world-class performance.

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THE GUARDIAN 17/06/2022
SEAN INGLE

A global alliance of gymnasts will demand the sport’s governing body and the International Olympic Committee make major reforms to prevent further shocking abuse scandals. Advocacy groups representing abused gymnasts have joined forces to call on the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) to review the minimum age for athletes to compete, introduce significantly stronger welfare standards and establish an international register of banned coaches. The groups include Gymnasts for Change in the UK, Gymnasts Alliance in the US, and others in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

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THE TIMES 16/06/2022
REBECCA MYERS

The Whyte Review may be the most damning report in the history of British Olympic sport, with devastating details of child abuse affecting hundreds of gymnasts across the country. Two years after it was first commissioned, the 306-page report has unsparingly and unflinchingly exposed the depth of the allegations of physical and emotional mistreatment that have plagued the sport — from the youngest amateurs just hoping to enjoy time at the gym, through to the best elite athletes in the country. The details are shocking but, to those who know gymnastics, they are unlikely to be surprising.

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THE GUARDIAN 16/06/2022 SEAN INGLE

British Gymnastics enabled a culture where young gymnasts were starved, body shamed and abused in a system that ruthlessly put the pursuit of medals over the protection of children, a devastating report has found. The independent review by Anne Whyte QC, based on more than 400 submissions from those in the sport, unearthed stories of gymnasts as young as seven being sat on by coaches while stretching and others humiliated in front of their peers and deprived of food and water by coaches. “I heard extreme accounts of gymnasts hiding food, for example in ceiling tiles or under the bed in their rooms,” writes Whyte at one point.

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THE NATIONAL 16/06/2022

British Gymnastics chief executive Sarah Powell has issued a “genuine apology” for the abuse scandal that has rocked the sport, and admitted the governing body faces a long and difficult task to restore trust. Safeguarding failures from junior to elite level have been catalogued in the Whyte Review, published on Thursday, which was jointly commissioned by UK Sport and Sport England. The 306-page report accused British Gymnastics of presiding over an era in which money and medals mattered more than athlete safety, and said it had singularly failed to listen to athletes’ complaints.

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The Mirror 16/06/2022 JEREMY ARMSTRONG

Young British gymnasts were subjected to shocking levels of physical and mental abuse, a hard-hitting report concluded today. The extent of the scandal was laid bare in a 306-page review by Anne Whyte QC. Jointly commissioned by UK Sport and Sport England in 2020, it said the well-being and welfare of athletes was not at the centre of British Gymnastics’ culture. Ms Whyte wrote: “For much of the period of the Review...it has not, until very recently, featured as prominently as it ought to have done in the World Class Programme.” She drew conclusions from more than 400 submissions. Half reported emotional abuse, nine per cent involved sex abuse. More than two thirds were ‘critical in tone’.

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The Daily Mail 16/06/2022

Gymnasts affected by the abuse scandal within the sport say they expect the publication of the Whyte Review on Thursday to grasp an “unprecedented opportunity” for fundamental change. Gymnasts for Change, the campaigning group made up of athletes and former athletes, said it was imperative the review seized the chance to make sure such widespread incidents of abuse could never be repeated. A spokesperson told the PA news agency: “The Whyte Review presents an unprecedented opportunity to address historic wrongs in gymnastics and reform the sport we love for the better. “We hope (the) report, and actions from the commissioning bodies, live up to that promise.”

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BBC 14/06/2022
NATALIE PIRKS

A former elite acrobatic gymnast has become the first to win a civil case against British Gymnastics for the abuse she experienced in the sport. Eloise Jotischky says Andrew Griffiths subjected her to inappropriate weight management techniques and verbal harassment when he was her coach at Heathrow Gymnastics Club. British Gymnastics has admitted full liability. It has reached a settlement and Jotischky has received a full apology from the governing body's chief executive. However, after Jotischky had received a letter confirming British Gymnastics' admittance of liability in March, Griffiths went to the World Acrobatic Championships as a Great Britain coach. British Gymnastics told BBC Sport he has since cancelled his membership with the governing body and is therefore not permitted to coach, while Heathrow said he no longer works for them.

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GUARDIAN 26/05/2022
SEAN INGLE

The top women’s gymnastics coach Amanda Reddin, who helped steer Team GB to their greatest Olympic performance at the Rio Games in 2016, has quit just weeks before an independent review into abuse in the sport. The news was announced by British Gymnastics, who said it had been “mutually agreed” that Reddin would leave her role as head national coach with immediate effect. British Gymnastics revealed Reddin had been cleared of some of the accusations against her, but another independent investigation was continuing into “further historical complaints”.

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CNN MAY 13 2022

DON RIDDELL

"I was fearless," she told CNN from her home in Vancouver. "Every child likes to learn how to flip, all of my early memories are pretty happy and joy-filled, which they should be." At the age of two, Cline says that her interest was obvious to her parents by the way she'd be pulling "little baby chin-ups," at the kitchen counter. Soon she had developed into a serious athlete. By the time she was nine or 10, Cline had outgrown her local coaches and was now travelling an hour from home to train at an elite club. For a while, her love of the sport continued, but Cline says everything changed when Vladimir Lashin and his wife Svetlana arrived as the new coaching team. Cline says that the mood in the gym quickly darkened.

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BRISBAINE TIMES: APRIL 07 2022

GREG BAUM

For the second time in less than a year, shameful secrets in Australian gymnastics are about to be laid bare. Last year, an Australian Human Rights Commission report exposed a confronting history of physical, mental and emotional abuse of children in the sport across the board. Now a soon-to-be-published Sport Integrity Australia review paints a similarly alarming picture of systemic dysfunction over 30 years in the WA Institute of Sport women’s gymnastics program.

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TEXUS SPORTS NATION 26/04/2022
DAVID BARRON

Steve Penny, the former president of USA Gymnastics, at an event at the Karoly Ranch in 2011. Steve Penny, the former president of USA Gymnastics, with Carly Patterson for a magazine photo shoot in Athens in 2004. Among the emotionally searing moments that accompanied the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, none was more blunt than Simone Biles’ tearful indictment in 2019 of USA Gymnastics’ leadership. “You literally had one job,” said Biles, the sport’s most decorated female athlete, “and you couldn’t protect us.”Three years later, those words still resonate with Steve Penny, the federation’s CEO from 2005 through 2017 and at one time one of the most powerful figures in U.S. Olympic sports.

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ESPN 26/04/2022
JON BAR & DAN MURPHY

Description goes hereCharges of evidence tampering against former USA Gymnastics president and CEO Steve Penny have been dismissed, according to court documents filed last week in Walker County, Texas. The dismissal closes a chapter in a criminal case in which survivors of disgraced Team USA doctor Larry Nassar's sexual abuse had hoped to gain a greater degree of accountability from the people they consider to be among Nassar's many enablers. Walker County Texas District Attorney Will Durham declined to comment to ESPN on Tuesday, referring a reporter instead to a dismissal letter, filed on April 14, which reads in part, "there is now insufficient evidence to prosecute according to current law and facts present in the case."

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THE GUARDIAN 25/04/2022
TUMAINI CARAYOL

Shortly before the Tokyo Olympics a top British gymnastics coach was removed from the Great Britain Olympic coaching team on account of allegations about her treatment of a former gymnast, according to a report published by BBC Sport. The veteran coach Liz Kincaid coached a number of gymnasts including Amelie Morgan, part of the historic Olympic bronze medal‑winning team in Tokyo, but an allegation was made against her relating to the mental health of one her former gymnasts, which prompted an investigation. Under the British Olympic Association rules the investigation left her ineligible for the British team in Tokyo. In July 2021 it was announced that Kincaid would retire from the sport.

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THE CONVERSATION 22/04/2022
ALISON QUIGLEY & GEORGIA CERVIN

Children forced to train on empty stomachs and falling on their heads. Young athletes told to manage the welfare of their own coaches. Girls starving themselves before enduring skinfold tests to avoid the horror of gaining weight, and sending them into lifelong patterns of disordered eating. These are the stories that have emerged from a report released this week on the women’s gymnastics program at the Western Australian Institute of Sport (WAIS).

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THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER 14/03/2022
SCOTT M READ

Former Olympic champion Valeri Liukin will head Team USA at an international competition in Germany this week while under investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for allegedly verbally and psychologically abusing multiple athletes and pressuring them to train or compete with broken bones. Liukin, 55, will be the U.S. national team’s head coach at the DTB Pokal Team Challenge and Mixed Cup in Stuttgart this week, USA Gymnastics and event officials confirmed. Liukin, the father and coach of 2008 Olympic all-around champion Nastia Liukin, has been under investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport since at least Jan. 27, according to U.S. Center for SafeSport emails and documents obtained by the Southern California News Group.

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STUFF 09/02/2022

ZOE GEORGE

Gymnastics NZ admits it 'underestimated' time to change culture and former elite gymnast Rachel Vickery - found abusive practices had occurred in gymnastics in New Zealand. The review was in response to a Stuff investigation that commenced in August 2020, which found a normalised “insidious” culture associated with gymnastics, instances of psychological and verbal abuse, body shaming that led to life long battles with food and body image, sexualisation, biased judging and score tampering, coaches being bullied and athletes training too long and too hard, and competing while seriously injured leaving some scarred for life.

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BRISBANE TIMES 03/02/2022
CHIP LE GRANDE

Australia’s most celebrated gymnastics coach, Peggy Liddick, faces a ban from any involvement with state or national teams after the National Sports Tribunal found she belittled and humiliated a gymnast in her care. In a scathing decision, the tribunal found that Liddick, a long-serving national coach and member of Gymnastics Australia’s hall of fame, was a less than impressive witness who showed no contrition and little insight into the power she wielded over teenage girls under her control.

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THE TIMES 19/12/2021
REBECCA MYERS

Last week was a watershed for gymnastics. On Monday more than 500 women and girls who experienced abuse at the hands of the former United States team doctor Larry Nassar reached a settlement with USA Gymnastics worth £287 million, ending more than five years of legal work and campaigning. It is an important, if painful, landmark, but gymnasts around the world know that it is far from the end of this story. “To move forward we have to make sure that this never happens again — on the Olympic team or at the lowest-level gyms,” Rachael Denhollander, the first Nassar survivor to go public with her allegations, said.

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THE ATLANTIC, 3 AUGUST 2021

EMMA GREEN

Rachael Denhollander is one of many people who can no longer watch the Olympics with casual enjoyment. In 2016, she was the first woman to publicly accuse Larry Nassar, the USA Gymnastics (USAG) team physician, of sexually assaulting her during physical-therapy sessions. A year and a half later, she stood in a Michigan courtroom at Nassar’s sentencing hearing and told her story along with nearly a hundred other women. Shortly before the hearing, Biles, who has been called the greatest gymnast of all time, wrote on social media that she, too, had been abused by Nassar.

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FIVE THIRTY EIGHT. 27 JULY 2021

DVORA MEYERS

It’s not unusual for athletes to explore other hobbies and interests before settling on their specialty. But for most elite gymnasts, the period “before gymnastics” isn’t long enough to do much else. They typically start very young and specialize very soon — as early as 4 years old, with more advanced training and competition around age 7 — and devote all their time outside school to the sport, to the exclusion of essentially everything else.

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THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 03/05/2021
GREG BAUM

Some gymnasts tell of sexual abuse. One says her coach would “have an erection which I could feel him pushing repetitively on my hips or back while grunting and sighing”. Another says she and her peers developed a coping code. “As a group, we tried to have signs and signals to help us avoid it even slightly,” she says. “We whispered things like, ‘he’s got wandering hands today, try and avoid him if you can’.” A third tells of how a massage therapist would abuse her, with her unaware mother in the room. “I would lie face down on the massage table with tears streaming down my face in silence,” she says. “I remember it being incredibly painful, but I did not want to complain.”

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THE TIMES 01/05/2021
REBECCA MYERS

Leading British gymnasts have spoken out against “outdated and sexist” regulations concerning the leotards they can wear for competitions. Jennifer Pinches, a retired gymnast who represented Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics, said the rules for attire at competitions were “perpetuating extremely harmful ideals”. She said it was part of a wider issue in gymnastics of policing women’s bodies and called for the International Federation of Gymnastics (Fig), which draws up the rules, to reconsider them. Its “code of points” for women’s artistic gymnastics states outfits must be “elegant” with “proper” necklines and that leg length of the leotard must not exceed 2cm. It states it “cannot exceed the horizontal line around the leg, delineated by no more than 2cm below the base of the buttocks”.

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ABC News, Australia: 22 Apr 2021

SAMIA O’KEEFE

They were at the top of their game, elite child athletes in the hyper-competitive world of gymnastics. But behind the scenes, these women say they were subjected to terrible physical and emotional abuse. Jen Smith was once an Olympic athlete, but these days she doesn’t want to talk about it. The talented gymnast had achieved the dizzying heights of Olympic competition by the age of 16, when she represented Australia at the Atlanta games. But it’s no source of pride for Jen, now 41.

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THE GUARDIAN 27/10/2021
CATH BISHOP

Instead of more medals, more compassion. Instead of extraordinary superheroes, brilliant human beings. Instead of a chest-beating accompaniment to “the best ever” chant, simple expressions of pure joy. What a fascinating year of sport, where what happens on the pitch is now much more connected to what happens off it. And what incredible leadership from sportsmen and women across the world who have gone beyond the traditional boundaries of the sporting world to show us a better way to think, behave and connect.

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THE WASHINGTON POST 29/07/2021
SALLY JENKINS

The trouble with the phrase “mental health” is that it’s an abstraction that allows you to sail right straight over what happened to Simone Biles and, in a way, what is still happening to her. To this day, American Olympic officials continue to betray her. They deny that they had a legal duty to protect her and others from rapist-child pornographer Larry Nassar, and they continue to evade accountability in judicial maneuvering. Abuse is a current event for her. It’s a perilous endeavor to project what Biles, the most uniquely superior gymnast in the world, is feeling or thinking at this juncture. But she has been frank about these things: her profound lingering distrust of USA Gymnastics and the USOPC and her conviction they will not do right by her and other athletes of their own accord. Remember, if it wasn’t for Biles bringing her clout to the issue, these users would still be making women train in the buggy squalor of the Karolyi Ranch, the USOPC-sanctioned hellhole where they were molested.

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INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 07/2021

TIM EVANS & DANA HUNSINGER BENBOW

Five years ago, USA Gymnastics was on top of the sports world. The Indianapolis-based national governing body was regarded as one of the crown jewels of the US Olympic movement. It was flush with cash from sponsors such as AT&T, Procter & Gamble and Hershey’s. And its competitive showpiece, the women’s artistic team, featured some of America's best-ever gymnasts. With a marketing-savvy leadership team and diverse core of likable stars — including Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Laurie Hernandez and Gabby Douglass — Team USA was poised to shine like never before on the world stage at the Rio Olympics. And if USAG needed any more reason for an adoring public to engage, the 2016 games would be the last hurrah for coach Marta Karolyi. Old-school taskmasters, Marta and her husband, Bela, helped transform the sport in the US after defecting from Romania in the 1980s.

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ABC NEWS 26/07/2021

MARALENE LENTHANG

As American gymnasts prepare to dazzle on the Olympic stage in Tokyo this month, the sport is still struggling to shake off the specter of the Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal. It's been five years since the first women came forward publicly in 2016 to accuse the former USA Gymnastics national team doctor of sexual abuse under the guise of medical treatment. Since then, hundreds of young women and girls have come forward. In 2017, Nassar pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 60 years behind bars for child pornography and other charges. One year later, he again pleaded guilty and was sentenced to an additional 40 to 175 years for multiple counts of sexual assault of minors. While Nassar, 57, remains behind bars, the scars of his abuse linger on.

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BBC 31/05/2021

An independent inquiry into gymnastics in Australia says it has uncovered a culture of physical, emotional and sexual abuse in the sport. The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) found that bullying and body-shaming were prevalent at elite levels. The report highlighted a win-at-all-costs culture that created a risk of harm and abuse. Gymnastics Australia, which commissioned the review last year, called the findings "confronting". "Gymnastics Australia unreservedly apologises to all athletes and family members who have experienced any form of abuse participating in the sport," it said in a statement. "We also thank the athletes and other community members who engaged in the review process and acknowledge their bravery in doing so."

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BRISBAINE TIMES: 09/05/2021
CHIP LE GRANDE

Georgia Simpson knew with sickening certainty as she was twisting and tumbling through the air that it was going to end badly. A part of her knew it before she even walked on the mat to start her routine. The moment she crash-landed, she instinctively did what every gymnast is taught to do; get back up. But as she regained her feet, something felt all wrong. She looked down and saw why. Her left foot was jutting out sideways at a horrific angle from her shin. The inside of her ankle was a mess of broken skin, blood and protruding bone.

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SCARRY MOMMY 02/05/2021

ARIELLE TSCHINKEL

In the immediate rise of the #MeToo movement, several athletes came forward to share that they’d been sexually abused by Larry Nassar, the doctor for the U.S. women’s national gymnastics team for 18 years. Nassar reportedly abused at least 265 girls and young women in that time, including gymnasts Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, and McKayla Maroney before being sentenced to 60 years in federal prison in 2017. That same year, Maroney filed a lawsuit against USA Gymnastics (USAG), the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), Michigan State University, and Nassar for forcing her into silence by way of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), paying her a reported $1.25 million to remain quiet. Now retired from professional gymnastics, the Olympic gold medalist is opening up more specifically about the abuse she experienced on social media, sharing the ways in which USA Gymnastics, the national governing body of gymnastics in America, failed to protect her and other young athletes and seemingly prevented her parents from being around to know what was going on behind the scenes.

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THE TIMES 28/04/2021

REBECCA MYERS

Michelle Kinneavy clearly remembers the culture at the gymnastics club she attended as a child. “Parents should be outside,” she says. “My dad would drop me off at the door and the door would be closed, firmly, if not locked. You almost give up ownership of your child once they’re in this space.” Kinneavy was nine years old when she was sexually assaulted by her gymnastics coach in the 1980s. She reached a substantial settlement with British Gymnastics (BG) last year and waived her right to anonymity in the hope of creating change for the next generation of gymnasts. She says a culture of “closed doors” helped to enable her abuser and has added her voice to those of former gymnasts and parents in calling.

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LA TIMES 12/04/2021
LILLY NGUYEN

A former member of the U.S. Women’s National Gymnastics Team filed a lawsuit against former U.S. Women’s Olympic Gymnastics coach Don Peters in Orange County Superior Court this week, accusing him of sexually abusing her while she was training as a minor. The lawsuit filed Tuesday does not name defendants due to a law requiring a judge’s approval prior to the disclosure of identities, but the plaintiff’s attorney, John Manly, confirmed those involved as Peters and SCATS Gymnastics in Huntington Beach. In the complaint, plaintiff Doe Yamashiro accuses Peters of repeatedly sexually abusing her while she was training at SCATS Gymnastics and while on national and international trips for competitions. The lawsuit claims Yamashiro was sexually harassed and abused at SCATS and in training facilities, gyms, hotels and other places on at least 10 separate occasions, from 1986 to approximately 1988.

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THE TIMES 10/04/2021
REBECCA MYERS

The publication of an interim report has laid bare the scale of abuse allegations against gymnastics clubs and coaches in the UK, revealing that almost 400 individuals answered a call for evidence and that 39 cases have been referred to statutory authorities. The Whyte Review, an independent inquiry commissioned by Sport England and UK Sport after claims of emotional and physical abuse in gymnastics began to surface in the summer, published an interim report yesterday detailing the evidence it has received, which the NSPCC called “worrying”.

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THE CONVERSATION, 14/02/2021

GEORGIA CERVIN

Within days of serious allegations of physical and psychological abuse in New Zealand gymnastics emerging in late 2020, the sport’s governing body Gymnastics New Zealand commissioned an independent review. A series of media investigations had earlier painted a picture of widespread harm, including over-training and fat-shaming, predominantly affecting girls. The allegations echoed similar situations around the world. The eventual report was released last week and Gymnastics New Zealand apologised for the past abuses. However, the report does not contain specific findings, perhaps a result of its broad terms of reference. Instead, it identifies the main areas where change might happen, including the health, safety and well-being of gymnasts, coaching standards, finances, complaints procedures and organisational structure. The report recommends change in each of these areas, plus the establishment of a body to monitor implementation of those reforms.

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CNN, 26 FEBRUARY 2021

EVAN SIMKO-BEDNARSKI AND AMIR VERA with contributions by MAJLIE DE PUY KAMP, LAURA LY, LINH TRAN

John Geddert, who coached the 2012 US Olympic women's gymnastics team, was found dead Thursday after being charged with 24 felonies in connection with the abuse of young gymnasts, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday.

The 63-year-old was facing charges that included human trafficking, criminal sexual conduct and lying to a peace officer, a release from Nessel's office read. Geddert had been expected to turn himself in and be arraigned on Thursday afternoon.

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THE GUARDIAN, 25 JANUARY 2021

US gymnast Nia Dennis’s latest floor routine, which she dedicated to black culture, has won praise from fans such as Missy Elliott and Simone Biles after it attracted millions of views on social media over the weekend.

Dennis, a senior at UCLA, started her routine with Kendrick Lamar, and the rest of the performance incorporated artists such as Beyonce, Tupac Shakur, Missy Elliott, Soulja Boy and Megan Thee Stallion. UCLA tweeted out the routine with the hashtag #blackexcellence and Elliott gave her one-word opinion on Twitter: “snappin”.

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NEW YORK TIMES 30/11/2020
JULIET MACUR

In her first public remarks since being suspended from the sport for eight years, Maggie Haney disputed accusations that led to her punishment but said she could now see flaws in the way she treated some young athletes.

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ITV 07/09/2020
STEVE SCOTT

The release of Athlete A and the subsequent Gymnast Alliance movement has exposed the sport’s culture of abuse for all to see, and social media is now awash with gymnasts from around the world speaking out about their experiences. Abuse has been reported at every level and discipline of the sport within both women’s and men’s gymnastics. You only have to search #gymnastalliance to realise that we are not talking about a few bad apples. We’re talking about a broken system, with allegations dating back decades. From a performance perspective, over the last 30 years British Gymnastics has gone from being mediocre to world beating. The UK now regularly celebrates the medal winning success of its gymnasts at the Olympic and World Championship level – but at what cost?

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STUFF, 01/08/2020

ZOE GEORGE

Serious allegations of psychological and physical abuse have emerged from elite former New Zealand gymnasts, as an “insidious” culture driven by fear in the sport continues to be exposed globally. A Stuff investigation has uncovered allegations of a culture that normalised emotional manipulation, fat-shaming and athletes being forced to compete on serious injuries. Gymnastics New Zealand has launched “urgent enquiries” in response to the “shocking and distressing” allegations, chief executive Tony Compier told Stuff. Allegations have been made by seven former New Zealand elite athletes - covering both artistic and rhythmic gymnastics. The alleged abuse has resulted in some elite athletes living with life-long injuries, reliance on painkillers, anxiety, and ongoing management of eating disorders. The former gymnasts claim there is a normalised culture within the sport - both in New Zealand and globally - associated with weight, serious injuries, over-training and verbal abuse from coaches. The abuse is alleged at both club and international level, including while they were representing New Zealand at international events such as the Commonwealth Games, and dates back to at least to the 1990s.

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BBC NEWS TYNE & WEIR 20/07/2020

Accusations of abuse have been made against the internationally-renowned South Durham Gymnastics Club. Former gymnasts at the Spennymoor club say children as young as seven were bullied, fat-shamed and put in fear of their coaches. Some were put under pressure to exercise despite having broken bones, they said. The club said it "categorically denies any allegations of abuse and mistreatment of any of its gymnasts". In a statement chairman Paul Anderson also said the club took "any allegation of abuse or mistreatment very seriously" and that it found the claims "very concerning". "No athlete in any sport should be subject to or endure any kind of emotional or physical abuse at any level and the perpetrators must be held accountable," he said. There have recently been allegations of abuse within the sport in Britain. Olympic bronze medallist Amy Tinkler, who trained at South Durham until 2016, revealed on Tuesday she had made a complaint to the sport's governing body but has not said who or where it refers to.

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UNORTHODOX GYMNASTICS 11/07/2020

DVORA MEYERS

Back in 2008, 1986 U.S. National Champion Jennifer Sey published, Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams. The memoir delved into her experiences in the sport; Sey was frank in talking about abuse—physical, emotional, psychological, sexual—that she experienced or witnessed during her years as an elite gymnast. The book received a lot of angry pushback from people in the gymnastics community, especially those in positions of power. Sey was effectively blacklisted after its publication. Eight years later, we’d see that Sey had been right all along. In 2016, an Indy Star investigation showed that USA Gymnastics buried allegations of sex abuse, which led to several women (and then hundreds) coming forward and saying that former team doctor Larry Nassar had sexually abused them when they were gymnasts. Many of the survivors spoke about a culture rife with emotional and psychological abuse that cleared the way for Nassar’s sexual abuse. (For a newsletter about one of those gymnasts, check out this subscriber-only post about Jamie Dantzscher. She has been speaking out for 20 years.)

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WBUR, 01/05/2020

OLIVIA CHRISTIAN

In 1976, "Happy Days" was the most popular show on television. "Silly Love Songs" by Paul McCartney and Wings topped the Billboard charts. And, that summer in Montreal, the world, including a 6-year-old Jennifer Sey, was introduced to Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, the first ever to score a perfect 10 in the Olympics. "And, you know, the fact that she was only 14 and she looked like a little girl, that was really — that had an impact, I think not just on me, but a lot of little girls across the country," Jennifer says.

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DEADSPIN, 1 MARCH 2019

DVORA MEYERS

Liubou Charkashyna, the president of the International Gymnastics Federation’s athletes’ commission—which was created to represent gymnasts’ interests—used a recent interview with Belarussian media to express skepticism about the frequency of abuse in sports and victims’ motives.

While acknowledging that sex abuse is a problem and saying that her “heart froze” while listening to testimony of an athlete abused by her coach, Charkashyna spent more time casting doubt on victims.

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BBC SPORT, 13 NOVEMBER 2017

NICK HOPE

Commonwealth champion Dan Keatings says he experienced a culture of "bullying and manipulation" throughout his time as a British gymnast.

Keatings, 27, described retiring in January as a "relief", following a decade in which he won world, European and Commonwealth honours.

British Gymnastics has denied claims by a group of coaches that "appalling leadership" within the governing body had led to a "culture of fear".

"The fear is very real," Keatings said.

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SALON MAGAZINE 18/11/2011
JEN SEY

Disgust flows freely after reading each new story about Penn State. Why, we wonder, would someone willingly ignore reports of heinous sexual abuse of a child? Why would someone as “good” as Joe Paterno brush aside the alleged despicable and predatory actions of a coach on his staff, a coach representing his Nittany Lions? By all accounts, Paterno was the hero coach, a model of highly invested and supportive team building, a molder of men, a teacher and a mentor. As a thinking, feeling adult, it seems so obvious what the right choice would be. Report Jerry Sandusky to the police. No matter what.

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THE PEOPLE, 13/08/1984

CATHY RIGBY MCCOY

Before Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci there was Cathy Rigby. The first of the gymnast media darlings, the 4’11”, 93-pound pixie came to public attention at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, where she placed 16th. At the 1970 world gymnastic championships in Yugoslavia she won the silver medal, a first for an American woman in international competition. She competed again in 1972 in Munich, placing 10th. After retiring in 1972, at 19, Rigby parlayed her expertise into a career doing sports commentary and commercials. But the sport in which she had thrived since the age of 10 had a dire lingering effect on her. Desperate to maintain an “ideal” weight of 89 pounds, Rigby developed bulimia, the so-called binge-and-purge syndrome. During her athletic career, and for years after, she would consume large amounts of food and then force herself to throw up. It wasn’t until three years ago, with the help of a psychiatrist and her second husband, actor Tom McCoy, 28, that she was able to overcome her problem.

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