A variety of forms of abuse have been reported in gymnastics, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Abuse has been reported in multiple countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Australia The gymnastics community in Australia has been impacted by a long-standing history of abuse, and the failure of authorities to take appropriate action when concerns were raised leading to the protection of the abuse at a systemic level.
1995 - Opie report In 1995, the Women's Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) program at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) faced accusations of abuse, with Coach Mark Calton being accused of hitting a 10 year old gymnast, with two other girls stating that their coach used emotional abuse calling them "fat" and "ugly". Within the same year, a former AIS gymnast filed a lawsuit against the Australian Sports Commission (ASC), alleging that the training regime at the AIS had caused her to suffer from anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder condition. As a result, Sports Minister John Faulkner commissioned an independent investigation to examine these allegations of physical and psychological abuse, conducted by sports lawyer, Hayden Opie.
This subsequent report, known as the Opie report, claimed that the physical assault of the 10 year old gymnast by her coach had resulted after the gymnast "provoked Calton into losing his self-control", but ultimately did not find he had struck her with Opie recommending counselling for the coach - not the gymnast - and dismissed the emotional abuse as the terms "fat" and "ugly" were often use in high-performance training centres such as the AIS environment. Ultimately, the Opie report concluded "No systematic or widespread abuse of AIS female gymnasts has been found to occur at any time. Major change at the AIS is not necessary.".
However, this inquiry has been criticised for being constrained by a narrow framework that did not address the broader issues present in the sport, resulting in the report providing recommendations that treated the symptoms rather than tackling the underlying problems and further legitimising and approving of the activities occurring that had upset parents and athletes. Critics also pointed out that "All parties involved in the sport of gymnastics had an interest in containing any perceived problems that might threaten the sport."
2003 - Geoffery Robert Dobbs trial and sentencing In July 2003, gymnastics coach Geoffery Robert Dobbs was formally sentenced for life in jail with no prospect of parole on charges of molesting and producing child sexual abuse material of 62 girls aged from 12 months to 15 years old between 1972 and 1999. Detectives believed that in total, he may have abused more than 300 girls, leaving up to 240 alleged victims unaccounted for. His victims included athletes whom he had obtained access to through his role as a gymnastics coach.
2013 - Belooussov coach suspension In 2021, the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) responded to enquiries by the ABC to confirm the 2013 suspension of husband and wife coaches, Sasha and Olga Belooussov, for an 18-month period for the verbal abuse of a gymnast.
This suspension had remained unreported for eight years due to the complaint handling process by Gymnastics Australia (GA), which had meant that those involved, including the verbally abused gymnast and GA, were barred from speaking due to confidentiality provisions.
Despite this period of suspension, the Belooussov couple returned to coaching gymnastics in Australia, returning to their roles as personal coaches for Georgia Godwin (Australian Commonwealth Games and Olympian medalist), GA assistant coach, coaching at Queensland gymnastics club Delta Gymnastics, and winning the GA WAG International Coach/Coaching Team of the Year Award in 2019.
2018 - National Centre of Excellence investigation During January 2018, the gymnastics world was exposed to the horrors of abuse in gymnastics as the Larry Nassar abuse trial played out publicly, raising awareness of child safety in sports, particularly within gymnastics, with victim Aly Raisman urging sporting bodies to ensure safeguards to ensure the mistakes of the United States were not repeated.
In response to the Larry Nassar case, Gymnastics Australia (GA) CEO Kitty Chiller made a statement regarding how the USA scandal had prompted GA to carry out an audit of their processes and policies, including an education process to empower "any young member or any member of a gymnastics association to know that they have a voice and to know where that voice will be heard." Kitty Chiller denied that GA had an existing problem with child abuse, stating "there's never been any evidence or complaints that anyone's been unhappy within the Gymnastics Australia environment" and GA's audit did not uncover any practices that needed to be changed.
However, within the same year, parents reported to Gymnastics Australia that their children as young as eight were being regularly verbally and physically abused at the GA National Centre of Excellence (NCE) in Melbourne.
In these complaints, parents alleged their children were punished via methods such as "making them swing on the bar until their hands bled, doing squats until their knees gave out, or making them do handstands and stay upside down until they felt sick and fell over" with punishments being given for any misdemeanour from being perceived as not paying attention or being cheeky to not performing to the coach's standards. Athletes were also allegedly regularly yelled at multiple times within a training session, and not being allowed to comfort one another, with training sessions being closed to parents despite medical appointments occurring during training sessions. ABC News confirmed 16 parents, with the majority of their children being under the age of 15 years old and spending between 20 and 33 hours a week training at the NCE.
When the parents took their complaints formally to GA, GA appointed an independent investigator in May. However, after receiving an interim report from the independent investigator, GA closed the investigation in August, with a letter from Kitty Chiller to the parents citing that the majority of allegations were "incomplete" and "based on the investigator's interim report, GA did not find that any staff member was in breach of their employment with GA". This letter also stated that "the investigation took longer than anticipated and an extension would likely increase the burden placed on all parties involved" with no fault or wrongdoing being concluded.
George Tatai, who spent 21 years on the GA board and eight years as a member of the International Gymnastics Federation, holding an Order of Australia Medal for his work in the sport, spoke out against the way that GA handled this investigation stating that they were paying lip-service to the parents' concerns and protecting GA ahead of the athletes.
One of the mothers then went on to make a formal complaint in 2020, using the newly formed GA independent complaints process, the "Supplementary Complaints Management Process" (SCMP), to allege that Kitty Chiller should not have closed this investigation as the CEO of Gymnastics Australia at the time. This 2020 complaint was then closed and never investigated, being deemed out of scope as the SCMP limited valid complaints to only those involving direct conduct towards an athlete, therefore excluding officials who may have handled historical complaints or had knowledge of abuse from investigation under this process.
However new information was discovered in 2022 in Senate Estimates that found that the SCMP was co-drafted by those within Kitty Chiller's office, with GA providing input into the policy's design instead of the process being fully independent.
When the SCMP policy was announced in 2020, Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) and the National Sports Tribunal (NST) had released a media statement confirming they would play a key role in the SCMP policy, with SIA facilitating an independent and comprehensive assessment of individual complaints and assisting with the management and coordination of investigation in accordance with assessor recommendations while NST planned to provide mediation, conciliation and tribunal hearings as needed.
With the release of this information within the Senate Estimates, ABC News began an investigation to explore who had made the decision to exclude officials from investigations under the SCMP, resulting in SIA, NST and GA all making conflicting statements to the ABC reporters. SIA stated that it was GA who was ultimately responsible for the SCMP, with the policy being developed by the NST for the board of GA to provide approval with SIA's input being only on sections relevant to their role. The NST statement stated that SCMP was a GA policy, and as such, GA was involved in its development up to board level, noting that both SIA and the NST assisted GA in its development. Meanwhile, however, GA distanced itself completely from the policy, stating that the policy " was developed by the NST, with input from SIA, in relation to their role in the process. This policy was endorsed by the Gymnastics Australia Board."
2020-2021 Gymnastics Australia abuse investigation In 2020, the documentary film Athlete A was released, following investigative journalists as they broke the story of USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar sexually assaulting young female gymnasts, and the following allegations and trials around USA Gymnastics regarding the abuse they had suffered.
In the aftermath of the documentary release, dozens of Australian gymnasts took to social media to speak their own allegations of abuse within Australian gymnastics, exposing that the culture wasn't unique to gymnastics within the U.S. As a result, Gymnastics Australia (GA) announced an independent review into its own culture and practices, stating "those experiences are simply not acceptable." For this review, GA requested the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) to act as the independent body to ensure the integrity of the review, with the report completed in 2021.
This report was undertaken by a dedicated team of AHRC staff, led by the Sex Discrimination Commission with input from the National Children's Commissioner, who all had expertise in responding sensitively in a trauma informed way to a range of issues such as sexual assault, sexual harassment and abuse. The original planned release date was within the first quarter of 2021, however due to the community interest in the review, AHRC extended the consultation timeline to allow more participation with the review.
Participation opened in September 2020, with all past and present members of the gymnastics community in Australia including athletes, coaches, staff, volunteers and administrators being encouraged to participate through a series of focus groups, interviews and written submissions. Policies and procedures were also reviewed, alongside the way these policies and procedures were implemented with the governance structures surrounding these.
During the undertaking of investigation, athletes spoke out about the abusive techniques used in gymnastics training to the media with lawyers forming groups to consider taking legal action, as the athletes stated that the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) had ignored allegations of physical and psychological abuse for decades.
AHRC received 138 written submissions to the enquiry, with 47 interviews being conducted with 57 participants included current and former athletes, their families, staff, coaches and other relevant personnel.