Fri, Jul 24, 2020 page16

• Gymnasts recount ‘culture of fear’

  • AFP, SYDNEY
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  A host of former Australian gymnasts have gone public with accounts of physical, mental and emotional abuse in the sport, which left at least one young athlete contemplating suicide.

  Their decision to highlight the “dark and horrible” abuse follows the release of the documentary Athlete A, charting investigations into USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who was jailed for life in 2018 after abusing more than 250 athletes.

  While none of the Australian allegations involves sexual impropriety, they detail body-shaming, neglect and manipulation, prompting Gymnastics Australia to issue an open letter on Wednesday praising those who had gone public.

  

  Mary-Anne Monckton of Australia performs on the beam in the artistic gymnastics competition at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, on Aug. 1, 2014.

  Photo: AFP

  “At my supposed peak I was an anxious, stressed and depressed teenager,” Chloe Gilliland, who as Chloe Sims won gold at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia, wrote on social media. “At 17 ... I felt it was easier to end my own life than to give in to what they wanted me to be.”

  Gilliland said that she suffered from bulimia as coaches constantly told her she was “too heavy.”

  “If they weren’t making comments about being ‘heavy for the day,’ the next thing they would revert to saying was that I was just stupid,” she wrote.

  She said she was speaking up “because behind those smiles on the podium, are dark and horrible things that happen in the gym behind closed doors.”

  Mary-Anne Monckton, a silver medalist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, said that until now she was “scared” to share her story, “but at some point, someone has to stand up for the athletes.”

  “The abuse (physical, mental and emotional) needs to stop, or at least be stamped out of our sport,” she wrote. “I, like so many others, have experienced body shaming, have had food withheld, been yelled at until I cried ... and been manipulated and ‘forced’ to do things that I was not physically ready for or capable of doing.”

  Dual Olympian Georgia Bonora also went through “some terrible experiences at major international competitions and national training camps between 2006-2012,” she wrote.

  “Throughout that particular time, there was a culture of fear created by people in power,” she added, while stressing that not everyone was at fault.

  Similarly, Olivia Vivian said after reaching her goal of becoming an Olympian in Beijing in 2008 “I was a broken athlete and even worse, a broken person,” recalling “lots of yelling and many forms of criticism.”

  Gymnastics Australia chief executive Kitty Chiller said that the organization has “zero tolerance” for any form of abuse.

  “Ensuring we have a community and a membership that feels safe and is safe, supported and empowered is our highest priority,” she said, adding that a confidential complaints procedure is now in place. “We acknowledge and applaud those who have spoken up — their courage and their voice. I want you to know that we are here to listen. And we are here to act.”

  In a bid to encourage further dialogue, Gymnastics Australia said that it would set up athlete-led “listening groups” to determine what more needed to be done.

  “While we have accomplished a lot in recent years, I know that our work in this area is not finished, and nor should it ever be,” Chiller said.
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