Vaulted into Victims: Preventing Further Sexual Abuse in U.S. Olympic Sports Through Unionization and Improved Governance

Abstract

For almost two decades, a sexual predator groomed and abused hundreds of young, female athletes. All the while, he held an esteemed position as the national team doctor for USA Gymnastics, the national governing body for the sport of U.S. gymnastics, and served on the faculty at Michigan State University, where he treated countless female athletes in his sports medicine clinic. This predator, Larry Nassar, is now behind bars for life. At his sentencing hearings in 2018, hundreds of his victims, many of whom were Olympians, courageously came forward detailing their accounts of sexual abuse at the hands of Nassar, who veiled his abuse and molestation as "legitimate medical treatments" for injured athletes. Many of Nassar's long list of victims were just children when he abused them (some as young as age ten), and, thus they were unable to comprehend what was happening to them as they pursued their dreams. The nation is now left baffled as to how this abuse persisted for so long and why USA Gymnastics failed to properly detect and stop it.

Assessing the whistleblowing policies of international sport organisations

“…Reporting mechanisms are also necessary to protect athletes and other individuals from personal hazards such as criminal influence and sexual abuse. Reflecting on the so-called Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal in US gymnastics, Edelman and Pacella (2018) underline the lack of protection and whistleblowing incentives, which partly explains why it took 20 years for the case to come to light. The gymnasts, unaware of the risks, of their rights and of support mechanisms that might have been available, were left exposed and helpless.…”

“…The gymnasts, unaware of the risks, of their rights and of support mechanisms that might have been available, were left exposed and helpless. A “culture of silence” had to be broken (Edelman and Pacella, 2018, p. 465).…”