Gymnastics champ rips Olympic Committee over abuse scandal

CHICAGO: Star gymnast Aly Raisman, one of dozens of young American athletes who have testified they were sexually abused by former team doctor Larry Nassar, has slammed the US Olympic Committee for not acknowledging its role in the scandal.

As Nassar continues to face his accusers at a sentencing hearing in Michigan, Raisman addressed the resignation of three top executives from the USA Gymnastics board of directors as well as comments from USOC president Scott Blackmun.

“The USOC released a statement shamelessly taking credit for a few USAG resignations (note: not fired) as though they’re addressing the problem,” tweeted the six-time Olympic medalist late Monday, renewing her calls for an independent investigation into USA Gymnastics.

“They are still not acknowledging its own role in this mess. ZERO accountability! It’s like none of us were ever abused!”

Raisman hit out in particular at Blackmun’s comment that “USA Gymnastics needs to focus on supporting the brave survivors” -- as too little, too late.

“Was the USOC there to ‘focus on the brave survivors’? No,” she wrote. “Did they issue any statement then? Crickets.”

Chairman Paul Parilla, vice chairman Jay Binder and treasurer Bitsy Kelley stepped down from the USA Gymnastics board of directors after stinging criticism of how the governing body handled the case by Nassar’s accusers, who include Rio Olympic superstar Simone Biles.

Blackmun’s statement said the USOC had been in talks with USA Gymnastics pushing for change since last October.

Nassar, 54, has pleaded guilty to 10 counts of criminal sexual conduct and faces life in prison.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday on seven of the counts, with a separate sentence on the final three charges to be handed down at the end of the month.

Nassar has already been sentenced to 60 years in prison after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.

The presiding judge at Nassar’s sentencing hearing has received approximately 158 victim impact statements, according to prosecutors. The list of people asking to speak tripled since the hearing began a week ago.

Alison Chauvette on Tuesday said Nassar’s abusive behavior was so brazen, common and unchecked that she and fellow gymnasts discussed his strange treatments and simply assumed they must be legitimate.

“We young girls were fooled, but the world should not have been. USAG, Michigan State University and society all failed to keep us safe,” she said. — AFP SEOUL: He won multiple speed skating golds for South Korea and Russia, and was hailed as a corruption whistleblower along the way, but Victor An’s Olympic career has ended ignominiously in the aftermath of a doping scandal.

An, a former South Korean who switched his allegiance to Russia in 2011 after bitter disputes with Seoul’s skating authorities, has six short-track Olympic golds under his belt -three as a Korean and three as a Russian.

He hoped to compete in his birth country at next month’s Pyeongchang Winter Games under a neutral Olympic flag -which would have been his third emblem at the Games -- after the Russian team was banned over a state-sponsored doping scandal.

It would have been an emotionally charged climax to the seven-time world champion’s stellar but tumultuous Olympic career. – AFP