USA Gymnastics made a miraculous comeback — but is it actually safer for Olympians?
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2024
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
Hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse against the former USA Gymnastics doctor underscored how vulnerable athletes are — particularly when they're minors.
That year, Congress and the U.S. Olympic Committee had a solution.
The U.S. Center for SafeSport was founded to investigate and respond to allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct. The goal was for predators like Larry Nassar to never harm young athletes again.
Now, seven years later, SafeSport is facing scrutiny of its own — over whether it's made good on that promise.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The best gymnast in the nation ran, flipped, twirled, and twisted their way onto Team |
| 0:05.6 | USA. Now they're Paris bound and aiming to bring home the gold. |
| 0:10.3 | With all the hype around USA Gymnastics heading into the 2024 Summer Olympics, |
| 0:15.0 | it's easy to forget for a moment where the organization stood just six years ago. |
| 0:21.0 | Nobody was even concerned whether or not we were being sexually abused. |
| 0:26.1 | I was not protected and either were my teammates. |
| 0:29.1 | Larry Nassar is accountable. |
| 0:32.1 | USA Gymnastics is accountable. |
| 0:33.0 | That's former Olympic gymnast Jordan Weber speaking at the trial of long time USA Gymnastics Dr. Larry Nassar. |
| 0:41.0 | In 2018, he was sentenced to life in prison after hundreds of young |
| 0:45.6 | gymnasts came forward to say he had used his position to sexually assault them. |
| 0:50.4 | Then lawsuits against the organization multiplied. Major sponsors fled. And USA Gymnastics |
| 0:56.7 | was on the brink of being shut down by U.S. Olympic officials. Former gymnists say the culture inside the organization had been problematic for decades, |
| 1:06.4 | from grueling training schedules to pressure to perform through serious injuries. |
| 1:11.4 | What we experienced in the 90s, it was evident that it was not a healthy culture. |
| 1:15.6 | People talked about the toxic culture, they talked about the abuses, but I think people were |
| 1:20.0 | just in awe of what we were able to accomplish because they're like but they made history |
| 1:24.2 | they're amazing but people turned a blind eye to the abuse. |
| 1:28.0 | That's former Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes speaking with NPR at the Olympic trials in |
| 1:32.0 | Minneapolis last month. Dawes was part of the USA Gymnastics |
| 1:35.9 | team that won the all-around gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics. |
| 1:41.1 | In 2021, USA Gymnastics began to turn a corner. |
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