Can America See Gymnasts for More Than Their Medals?

The Experiment

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🗓️ 12 August 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

Ever since Kerri Strug and the Magnificent Seven won Olympic gold in 1996, the U.S. women’s gymnastics team has been a point of pride for many Americans. But over the past five years, athletes have been coming forward with allegations of widespread abuse in the sport. Former gymnasts say they were forced to train and compete with broken bones and that they were denied food. And dozens of women have testified that they were sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar, the former doctor who worked with the U.S. national team.

USA Gymnastics, the governing body for elite gymnastics in the United States, has said it’s working hard to change the sport’s culture, but many former gymnasts say it hasn’t done enough.

“We have coaches and institutions and organizations and a country, frankly, that prioritize money and medals over the bodies and souls of people,” says Rachael Denhollander, a former gymnast who was the first woman to come forward publicly with accusations against Nassar.

Now that we know the truth about how damaging elite gymnastics can be for young women and girls, should we change how we think about the sport? Denhollander says Simone Biles’s decision to withdraw from several Olympic events might change how athletes see their own worth.

“That’s going to entail a lot of hard conversations,” Denhollander says. “Do you have value and identity and worth outside of your gymnastics ability? If we really, truly understand that the answer to that is yes, that lays the foundation to be able to say, ‘I can’t sacrifice my value, identity, the rest of my life for this one thing.’”

This week on The Experiment: When national glory comes at the expense of young women’s bodies, can we still find a way to love the Olympics?

This episode’s guests include the Atlantic staff writer Emma Green and Rachael Denhollander, a lawyer and victims’ advocate.

Further reading: “The Gymnast Who Won’t Let Her Daughters Do Gymnastics”

A transcript of this episode is available.

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This episode was produced by Tracie Hunte and reported by Emma Green. Editing by Katherine Wells and Jenny Lawton. Fact-check by William Brennan. Sound design by David Herman, with additional engineering by Joe Plourde.

Music by Keyboard (“The World Eating,” “Staying In,” “Ojima,” “Contractions,” and “My Atelier”), Ob (“Waif” and “Ghyll”), and Laundry (“Films” and “Phthalo Blue”), provided by Tasty Morsels and Nelson Nance. Additional audio from NBC Sports, NBC Nightly News, IndyStar, the Today show, The Ben Maller Show, and Dominique Moceanu.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Julia Lungoria. This is the experiment. And this week we hand over the show to Correspondent Tracy Hunt.
0:31.0	So the Olympics are over, but I'm still thinking about the Olympics. And as with every Olympics, there are new records that were broken and new stars are made.
0:44.0	But the thing I can't stop thinking about is the moment when Simone Biles pulled out of the team and all around events in gymnastics.
0:55.0	She said she had been struggling with some mental health issues and she also did it feel she could safely do her routines.
1:02.0	And this moment made me think about the human cost beneath the surface of these huge athletic spectacles. And so I called Emma Green, who's been thinking about this too.
1:14.0	So I should say right at the top as a full disclaimer, I am the last person in the universe who has a sophisticated opinion about sports.
1:27.0	Emma Green is a staff writer for the Atlantic.
1:30.0	I am the definition of a regular human being who just loves the kind of pomp and circumstance and excitement and build up of the Olympics.
1:42.0	I always loved gymnastics. I always love the kind of peak artistry that we see gymnasts performing.
1:52.0	And the kind of drama around it too, right? These young women and men who have worked all their lives towards this goal.
2:00.0	And then literally everything depends on whether they can twist in the air the right number of times and land on their feet.
2:08.0	When I was growing up gymnastics was always my favorite event. I think the team that was like probably the most impactful for me as a young person was the magnificent 7.
2:21.0	At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
2:24.0	The Americans are Nalinants and the Crown loves it.
2:29.0	This truly is a team of superstars. We've been really proud of it.
2:31.0	I definitely remember Dominique Dawes and Shannon Miller in a course, Dominique Machiano.
2:37.0	Dominique Machiano. And I will tell you that if she nails this, this place will come apart.
2:44.0	I've been thinking about them a lot too. The 1996 Olympics were so iconic in terms of what they represented for America and American gymnasts and those young women who the entire country was looking to be these record breakers.
3:01.0	Double summer sol two flips two twists.
3:07.0	It was also exciting and beautiful, but there was a lot going on behind the scenes in 1996 that we didn't know about.
3:17.0	Dominique Machiano was under extreme pressure. She said she was emotionally abused and starved by her coaches, the Corollis.
3:26.0	The Corollis have denied abusing gymnasts.
	...

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