More than 265 gymnasts alleged in 2019 to have been sexually assaulted by gym owners, coaches or staff working for gymnastics programs across the country. Let’s begin with USA Artistic Gymnastics because of the recent overwhelming scandals – primarily minors at the time of the incidents – that were ‘swept under the rug’ (starting in the late 1990s). “Merciless coaching, overzealous parents, eating disorders, and elusive Olympic dreams!” They have been responsible for physical, emotional, and psychological abuse of many young and elite gymnasts leading to suicide attempts, death due to eating disorders and starvation (Ryan, 1995, 2000). On the other hand, elite coaches like Béla and Martha Károlyi arrived from former Eastern European Romania to continue their brutal coaching methods and harsh training regimes in the USA with the blessing of USA Gymnastics. Most coaches usually are former competitors or dancers, and continue in the ‘traditional modus’ (the way they were trained), or have never been involved in the sport, now trying to make a ‘living’ based on their coaching success. Sport Journalist Joan Ryan (1995, 2000) states that coaches in artistic gymnastics, and figure skating as well as Head Masters in classical ballet usually lack the education about growth and development of young athletes as many enrol at the tender age of 6-8 years, knowledge of psychology, mental training, periodization of training cycles, injury prevention and recovery. That does however not guarantee that coaching abuse might not occur but Coaching Canada has at least more control and can take action.
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For comparison, the Canadian National Coaching Association and its Professional Charter Coach (CHPC) system requires the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) for all coaches – no matter the sport – and subsequently has control over the current 58 National Sports Federations. The USA lacks the common coaching certification program and unified USA national coaching organization as each sport operates presently on its own. Lack of Mandatory National Coaching Certification and Unified Control The ‘dark’ side of this ‘cozy’ arrangement is the doctors, physiotherapists, and trainers, etc., associated with these programs, which opens up the potential for emotional, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse by any person on that staff, as evidenced over the past years. This may be true to a certain degree but it undoubtedly limits an athlete’s prospects for athletic scholarships somewhere else. The idea is to get younger or teen athletes acquainted with the specific system, the program philosophy, the coaching staff, and mandates in order to make recruiting into the program easier at a later time. I will report on the abuse in numerous other sports, college/university varsity programs, professional teams and professional athletes in the June Newsletter as we all need some happier and more uplifting news next month!Įlite Sport Clubs and their Link to College/University Teams make abuse more likelyĬompared to European countries, many elite sports clubs in the US and Canada tend to be associated with College or University Varsity programs to act as a so-called ‘feeder system.’ These athletes are said to benefit from the available coaching expertise at these institutions but many times the high annual fees support existing programs as additional income. The intention is to send a warning to parents to become more aware and cognizant, and to scrutinize more closely the sport of their child’s involvement.
As I did the research I began to realize that this would be a fairly lengthy report due to the gravity of the abuse that was and still is rampant. The April Newsletter deals with Part II, elite artistic gymnastics, elite figure skating, elite rhythmic sportive, and Ballet. I decided then to present my personal reflection on sport in the March News, i.e., what sport is supposed to be and what it really has become or is. I reported on the abuse within Beginner Sports in February.
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