Fighting sex abuse in Olympic sports a difficult task to face
Judges, event organizers and even some riders were caught offguard earlier this year when a well-known equestrian judge got booted out of one of the year's biggest horse shows.
Turns out, the judge's name had been flagged by the U.S. Center for Safesport, the newly created office charged with overseeing sexabuse cases in Olympic sports, because he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sex assault five years earlier, in a case that had nothing to do with minors or anyone in his sport.
Had he been at the show in a Philadelphia suburb working as a trainer, however, his case may have never been discovered. While judges in the horseshow world receive maximum scrutiny in an effort to protect athletes from sex abuse, the federation that oversees the sport on the Olympic level does not apply the same standards to the vast majority of the sport's trainers and coaches — the individuals who have the most day-today contact with the riders.
The case involving the judge, Robert Bielefeld, offers an eye-opening window into some of the difficulties and unintended consequences presented by the U.S. Olympic movement's mission to combat sexabuse within its ranks. It's a mission that took on more urgency after a sex-abuse scandal rocked USA Swimming in 2010, then metastasized into headline news in the wake of physician Larry Nassar's abuse of nearly 300 gymnasts, including some on the U.S. Olympic team.
The mission has also added immense pressure to administrators in dozens of niche sports, many of whom are experts in their field but don't have the skills to craft sex-abuseprevention policies that can have life-changing impact on victims and those who are accused.
"Upset. Disappointed," Devon Horse Show manager David Distler said of Bielefeld's reaction over his ouster from the renowned event over Memorial Day. "He thought it was done, finished, and it just kind of came up again out of nowhere."
Bielefeld did not respond to several requests from The Associated Press, made via telephone, email and social media, to comment for this story.
According to court records, in April of 2013, Bielefeld called a male worker at a hotel in Lexington, Virginia, into his room to fix his TV, pushed him onto the bed, exposed himself and began masturbating.
The worker escaped the room and told his manager, who urged him to call police. Within a few hours, Bielefeld was in jail. Shortly after that, he pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor assault and one count of attempted sexual battery. He received a sixmonth suspended jail sentence, 12 months of probation and was ordered to pay fines.
Once the probation was complete, the case was closed, and Bielefeld was free to resume his role as an equestrian judge — a job that didn't put him in direct contact with riders or minors.