Ten years on from Indianapolis Star revelations, survivors at World Championships say gymnastics reforms have been too slow

Ten years after the Indianapolis Star published allegations about Larry Nassar, survivors and advocates gathered on a large houseboat moored in Rotterdam during the World Gymnastics Championships this week to warn that change in the sport has progressed slowly. The meeting took place three tram stops from the Ahoy Arena and brought together gymnasts, campaigners and former athletes to discuss ongoing safeguarding failures.

Larry Nassar’s 2018 conviction followed hundreds of women coming forward with allegations that included abuse during his work at Michigan State University, and prompted investigations into how gymnastics had allowed predators to operate. While the Nassar case was described in the report as the worst recorded case, it also revealed systemic failures across countries to protect athletes from sexual, physical and emotional abuse.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s courtroom hearings became a focal point of the reckoning, with 169 people taking the stand across seven days and wide public attention on the victims’ statements. Aquilina said: "I know, dealing with so many victims, that when they speak publicly you see them shed their pain and get taller. You see them have a relief, an automatic release," and described how victims empowered one another: "What happened was that one girl empowered the next, who empowered the next. It was the beginning of their healing because they felt finally heard and believed, in a safe space, and they got to tell him to his face, eyeball to eyeball: 'You hurt me. I am not a number, I am a name, how dare you?'" Aquilina sentenced Nassar to up to 175 years in jail and other convictions, federal and state, made a total of 300 years to life.

Two years after the sentencing the documentary Athlete A, named after Maggie Nichols, was released and is credited with exposing a culture of compliance, fear and silence in the sport. High-profile gymnasts motivated to speak out after the exposure included Olympic gold medallists Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber, Olympic bronze medallist Jamie Dantzscher and former US national champion Mattie Larson, while Nichols’s mother read a statement on her behalf. Simone Biles publicly revealed she was a victim on social media and later testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee.

Former Canadian gymnast Kim Shore, who went into governance at Gymnastics Canada, described personal experiences of abuse and said the Nassar revelations made her realise the treatment was endemic: "I absolutely love the sport. I love how it feels in my body. I love so many aspects of it. And yet I spent most of my time surviving it." Eloise Jotischky, who won the first civil case against British Gymnastics at the end of last year, said Athlete A helped survivors "to articulate what you’ve been through" and likened the sport’s culture to "a coercively controlling relationship"; she stopped training at 14. Claire Heafford described leaving gymnastics and founding Gymnasts for Change after the documentary prompted her to recognise the abuse she had suffered, saying: "Athlete A was seismic. It came out just as Me Too had started. On the one hand, Athlete A showed how awful the sexual abuse was and on the other it demonstrated to everybody in the world that gymnastics was a coercively controlling environment built on control and power."

In the United States the fallout included the FBI acknowledging its handling of the case was "inexcusable" and Congress establishing the US Center for SafeSport. USA Gymnastics went through four presidents in less than two years, committed to adopting 70 recommendations from an independent report, set up an Athlete Bill of Rights and now says athlete safety has been its "top priority since establishing a new board of directors and leadership team in 2018-2019"; it requires all adult USAG members to be trained in safeguarding and states eight board members are former elite athletes with one seat dedicated to a survivor. In Britain, an independent review led by Anne Whyte QC found physical and emotional abuse to be systemic and prompted British Gymnastics to launch a 40-point plan including a zero tolerance approach and a gymnast-coach led environment. World Gymnastics published a new safeguarding policy last week noting the Gymnastics Ethics Foundation, launched in 2019 and which has handled nearly 500 reports, can extend sanctions imposed by member federations where compatible with the governing body’s rules and general principles of law; the federation also introduced the 10 Golden Rules of Gymnastics in 2021, established a safeguarding commission in 2022 and this year launched a safeguarding newsletter and appointed a full-time Safeguarding Manager.

Survivors and advocates at Rotterdam continued to voice dissatisfaction with the pace and depth of reform. Shore argued that admitting harm exposes organisations to liability and slows engagement: "The more I learn that the stories are consistent internationally the more it says something about the need for World Gymnastics to take a leadership role." Heafford alleged British Gymnastics "isn't entering into meaningful engagement and collaboration with Gymnasts for Change and other survivors" and said she found that "extremely frustrating", while British Gymnastics said it had engaged regularly with G4CI and others in Rotterdam and introduced a new complaints and disciplinary process "to improve transparency and fairness". Human Rights Watch’s Minky Worden warned: "Sport is getting younger. There's a youth Olympics about to launch in Senegal. There's going to be thousands of athletes, every one of them 18 or younger. They're all children and they're at a very elite level," and Adina Hausch argued for age-based limits, saying: "I would root for Germany not to join youth international competitions. Having a 13-year-old do youth European championships is the same as doing it as an adult, it's the same amount of work you have to put in, the same amount of pressure, it’s not a softer version, it's the full version, and it doesn't make sense." Charlotte Jacobs, who quit at 18 after emotional abuse, urged more coach training on mental wellbeing, disability and neurodiversity and called for clearer regulation, while Jotischky highlighted legal gaps: "The legislative gap that exists is astonishing... of course coercive control and emotional abuse can happen but it's not recognised within the law. So, we have very little legislative ground to deal with the most serious cases in particular."

World Gymnastics responded in a statement: "Creating a safe environment for current and future generations of gymnasts is a responsibility that World Gymnastics takes extremely seriously and shares with all stakeholders across the sport. The priority for World Gymnastics is not only to strengthen safeguarding rules and policies, but to ensure that they lead to meaningful changes in everyday practice." Survivors at Rotterdam said they remain excluded from some decision-making structures and continue to press for their experiences to be channelled into the reforms governing bodies put into practice.