Athlete A - The Movie

[DGUtley]

Mrs. U and I watched this movie yesterday. Wow -- Double Wow.


An August 2016 article in the Indianapolis Star about USA Gymnastics protecting coaches accused of abuse leads to the explosive revelation that the USAG women’s team doctor, Larry Nassar, had been abusing athletes for over two decades. This film follows the IndyStar reporters as they reveal the extensive cover-up that allowed abuse to thrive within elite-level gymnastics for more than two decades, the attorney who is fighting the institutions that failed these athletes, and most importantly, the brave whistle-blowers who refuse to be silenced.

[texan]

That was really interesting to follow in the news. I need to catch this one.

[Adelaide]

Something I found interesting in this documentary was how the atmosphere of training impacted how the athletes perceived the abuse. I did competitive figure skating and something you get very accustomed to is adults yelling at you, although I only had one coach who went over the line with that where it crossed into verbal abuse. He was actually more handsy than other coaches but I only had him during summers.

You also get used to them touching you (in non-abusive ways). They help you stretch, they point out which muscles should be doing what, they poke at places you need to tighten up on for certain movements, they hold you around the waist, they manually correct your posture, and so on. They massage you if you get injured on the ice (happened to me once when I was thrown into the boards and hurt my lower back) and then the physiotherapist on staff massages and works on your everyday injuries. My hip and knee weren't aligned properly resulting in chronic pain, so I had visited him regularly for massaging and treating that. I was constantly weighed by the personal trainer.

It starts being completely normal for an adult male or woman to touch you, so I can easily see where a gymnast would question if something were abuse or not even realize it. It also makes sense that because the coaches were sometimes verbally abusive, the athletes felt unable to tell them or the coaches became complicit.

Looking back, it's the perfect atmosphere for a predator so the institution (USAG) protecting Nassar really bothered me. The conditions make the girls (and boys) so vulnerable to being abused so the adults need to be ready to hold their own accountable if/when something happens.

[Perianne]

It's been a while since I watched it, but I remember the mother and sissy-father who tolerated the abuse as long as the daughter was allowed to be on the team. It made me sick overall and Nassar deserves imprisonment for life

[Adelaide]

It's been a while since I watched it, but I remember the mother and sissy-father who tolerated the abuse as long as the daughter was allowed to be on the team. It made me sick overall and Nassar deserves imprisonment for life

What makes him a "sissy"?

They thought the FBI was investigating and that if they did anything it would jeopardize that. USAG lied to them.