Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Click PLAY or watch it on Facebook.
via GymCastic
Category: sport medicine
Simone #MeToo
Nassar is the horror story that never ends.
Why hasn’t the Ranch been abandoned?
related – Jamie Dantzscher & Rachael Denhollander call for removal of USA Gymnastics leaders, saying they didn’t do enough to stop sexual abuse
OU: We stand beside Maggie
Collegiate gymnast breaks silence about sexual abuse by former USA Gymnastics doctor
Her Mom has been making TV appearances. VERY unhappy with USA Gymnastics and MSU.
USA Gymnastics is liable
I can’t arrive at any other conclusion.
According to court filings and interviews, it was Nichols and her coach, Sarah Jantzi, who reported Nassar to USA Gymnastics officials on June 17, 2015, after the coach overheard Maggie and another gymnast talking about Nassar’s behavior. …
Jantzi reported her concerns to USA Gymnastics women’s program director Rhonda Faehn and to Maggie’s mother, Gina.
According to the complaint, then–USA Gymnastics CEO Steve Penny “discouraged [Gina and John Nichols, Maggie’s parents] from reporting Nassar’s conduct to law enforcement and pressured them to keep the matter quiet.” …
Sometime between June 21 and July 2, USA Gymnastics brought on Fran Sepler, an expert on workplace harassment with experience interviewing children in sexual assault cases, to interview Maggie. …
In a statement to SI, Penny’s lawyers said, “The matter was reported to the FBI on Monday, July 27, 2015, and [chairman of USA Gymnastics] Mr. Parilla and Mr. Penny met with the FBI on July 28. …
USA Gymnastics did not contact MSU or the Michigan-based gymnastics club Twistars whose athletes were also treated by Nassar. The national governing body is currently contending in court that it did not have a responsibility to inform either MSU or Twistars of allegations against Nassar.
The Nichols family says it was not contacted by the FBI until July 2016, nearly a year after Maggie had come forward …
At least 19 people whose treatment occurred between the time Maggie spoke to USA Gymnastics and the time she was interviewed by the FBI have filed civil complaints against Nassar. …
If you are one of those 19 people you have to ask why Nassar wasn’t stopped sooner? 😦
Yesterday USAG responded:
Contrary to reported accusations, USA Gymnastics never attempted to hide Nassar’s misconduct. The suggestion by plaintiff’s counsel John Manly, who indicates that he is representing Maggie, that USA Gymnastics tried to silence athletes or keep the investigation secret to avoid headlines before the Rio Olympics and to protect Los Angeles’ Olympic bid is entirely baseless. USA Gymnastics kept the matter confidential because of the FBI’s directive not to interfere with the investigation. …
Has the FBI confirmed? I assume directives like that are put on paper.
Still … USAG paid McKayla Maroney $1.25 million to keep quiet in late 2016. How is that not trying to cover up the crimes of their former team doctor?
In the end, this will be decided in a court of law. Unless USA Gymnastics goes bankrupt first.
Maggie Nichols #MeToo
Maggie Nichols, a member of the 2015 World Championships gold medal-winning team and now an NCAA champion at Oklahoma, said in a statement to SCNG that she was sexually abused by Nassar during a U.S. national team camp in 2015 at the remote Texas ranch owned by U.S. national team directors Bela and Martha Karolyi, a U.S. Olympic Committee Training Site, and elsewhere.
“Up until now, I was identified as Athlete A by USA gymnastics, the US Olympic Committee and Michigan State University,” Nichols said. “I want everyone to know that he did not do this to Athlete A, he did it to Maggie Nichols.” …
Maggie is the first known gymnast to tell USA Gymnastics chief executive Steve Penny and other top officials.
Why were they so slow to react after that first complaint?
Alyssa Baumann comeback 2017
Alyssa tied for 1st on Beam in her debut with Florida. Congratulations.
On June 29, 2016, 10 days before the U.S. Olympic Trials, Baumann was training on uneven bars at WOGA in Plano, Texas, where she began gymnastics at age 3. Baumann didn’t catch the bar completely on a Shaposhnikova and fell hard, landing on her stomach and left arm. …
Her elbow looked good, but she was in so much pain we knew something was wrong, but we had no idea how bad. A day later her mom called and all she said, in tears, was ‘It’s over.'”
Scans had revealed that Baumann had torn several ligaments and muscles in her elbow and needed immediate surgery. Her lifelong dream of competing for a spot on the Olympic team was not going to be realized. She shared the news on Instagram herself the next morning. …
On August 31, Baumann underwent a second surgery on her right wrist to fix an issue that had pained her for some time. The rest of 2016 was spent in rehabilitation …
The new plan was to be 100 percent ready for today, in January 2018, when Florida begins its new season. …
Her younger sister, Rachel Baumann, a former elite who competed Level 10 last year and who has committed to Georgia, also made a montage dedicated to Alyssa’s comeback …
IG Online Interview: Alyssa Baumann
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (Mar 2017)
Nastia on the Nassar scandal
In the wake of the scandal, Liukin is the first to acknowledge that the organization still has a long way to go. “What’s going on in our sport is awful. Change is needed. I’m hoping that this is now the beginning of change and hopefully a brighter future.”
Liukin’s commitment to change is a vision she shares with her father, Valeri Liukin, the current coach of the US National Team …
Nastia Liukin Calls For Change In USA Gymnastics Following Sexual Abuse Scandal
Actually, the Olympic Champion was one of the last prominent American gymnastics spokespersons to call for real change. But it’s nice to see her finally get on board. She wore black at the Golden Globes.
John Orozco, Laurie Hernandez and Nadia were there too.
Kristle Lowell #MeToo
The U.S. Trampoline national team member speaks out. And put it on her tramp slippers.
https://twitter.com/Kristle__Lowell/status/947950513311617025
Women brave enough to tell their story now have a support system.
(via theGymter.net)
Nassar letter from Sept 2016
He was trying to rally supporters in advance. Convince his boss he was innocent.
Michigan State University certainly looks liable.
(via TheGymter.net)
WADA Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE)
Athletes may have illnesses or conditions that require them to take particular medications.
If the medication an athlete is required to take to treat an illness or condition happens to fall under the Prohibited List, a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) may give that athlete the authorization to take the needed medicine. …
A few examples:
This list evolves over time “based on the evolution of medical best practice“.
Athlete medical records should be private. But in 2016 Russian hackers broke into the WAG database and revealed that athletes including Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Simone Biles had received TUEs.
Russian boxer Mikhail Aloyan, who won a silver medal in Rio, had one, as well.
Simone had received an exemption for her attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
There are those who feel that some TUEs are another form of cheating. If you agree, lobby to have those medications taken off the list.
For now, TUEs are legal.
Everyone I know agrees that Răducan, 2000 Olympic Champion, should not have been stripped of the gold medal for testing positive for pseudoephedrine, a banned substance at the time. Some medications should be allowed.
___ In a separate issue …
The International Olympic Committee finally took meaningful action against what it acknowledged had been “systematic” cheating by the nation at London 2012 and Sochi 2014, outlawing its flag, uniform and anthem from Pyeongchang 2018. …
Russian deputy prime minister Vitaly Mutko, who was sports minister at the time of the scandal, was also handed a lifetime Olympic ban …
Better late than never.
It’s false equivalency to claim that what Simone did is the same as a nationally organized, top down deliberate system of cheating.
I’m very unhappy for the clean Russian athletes, including all of the Artistic gymnasts. But I support the IOC sanction. Otherwise Putin’s team would continue deliberate cheating as vigorously as possible.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 