On Athlete A

Phew, this one was hard to watch. 

This documentary goes in-depth on how much these gymnasts were abused during the cold war as children. One of the earlier US competitors said the Eastern bloc gymnasts always looked scared, robotic and they didn't seem happy ever

And if you watch older videos, they really do look scared. Why won't they. These are literally kids. They put 14 year olds through gruesome gymnast routines. In their minds, the tinier you are, the more flexible you are to do routines.

But the bane of the above is that you're cultivating a environment toxic environment. You have total control of most hours of the day for these kids. They are physically, emotionally and verbally abused every day. One of the most toxic coaches would literally have them on scale to measure their weight every day. Jamie Dantzscher even said that after she fell sick and lost 6 pounds, the coach literally told her "you have to maintain that weight."

What this means is that this toxic environment of fear, intimidation and silence is thus creating a space where young girls can be sexually harassed by adults in their midst. in their words, they always asked the older girls in the team if the coaches/doctors did same thing (who by the way started as kids too) and the girls just say "yes, they do."

Thus they saw it as normal. Mind you, these are kids whose lives revolve around gymnastics as early as 4 years old. Most of them are home schooled and the rest of their day is in the gym. So there really isn't a space for them to know what even constitutes sexual assault. Basically, this is their first sexual experience and it had to come from a creepy older man. He stole that from them and they're all struggling to get it back. Even in the other documentary "Biles Rising" about Simone Biles, she revealed that she never really psychologically dealt with her sexual assault experience with that Doctor. And all of it came crashing down on her in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Paraphrasing the words of a former gymnast in the documentary, Jennifer Sey - "they go to these training centres as kids and stay there for years. And before they're adults, they are not aware of the lines between child abuse and tough coaching cos it's all blurred." Jamie Dantzscher confided that "she wasn't proud to be an Olympian champion" following the years of abuse she had experienced.

There was actually an audio recording featuring a gymnast doctor that was saying "athletes come first. You protect your gymnasts physically and mentally." Guess what? The same doctor sexually assaulted over 500 girls. This man also kept child porn. 37,000 children images. That's what he had on the hard drive he disposed of. He was inserting his hands in these kids vaginas during "supposed" treatments for joint or back pains. He also gets erections during these physicals. One of the girls that reported in 2015, Maggie Nichols was basically blacklisted from making the Olympics team though she was really qualified. They didn't even add her as an alternative.

Now note, these girls had also reported this same doctor as early as 1997. And guess what the US gymnastics association did? They dismissed them that it was common procedure and still sent them back to him. And he continued his assault. 

In one case, the girl was actually in the room with the mother. But this devil of a man blocked the view. Used one hand to be stretching and used his left hand for intra vaginal insertion. And the young girl couldn't even report because she actually thought her mother was aware of what the doctor was doing to her. And so thought it was normal.

This young girl, Rachael Denhollander would go on to become a lawyer after her gymnastics career. And was the first person to publicly accuse this doctor to bring him to trial. She also prepared an over hundred page legal complaint to launch the criminalisation of this Dr. Larry Nasser. More than 200 girls gave testimonies to the abuse they went through in the name of medical treatment. Some he abused at the training centre, others at his basement. He got life in prison without possibility of parole.

If I were to start narrating each girl's experience, I might never stop writing. So just watch this documentary or read Rachael Denhollander's memoir. We have a deeply misogynistic system that enables abuse, overlooked by adults, and it's endangering young girls.