ExOlympic skater writes of assault

Former Olympian Ashley Wagner says she was sexually assaulted by another figure skater in 2008 when she 17.

The threetime national champion wrote in USA Today on Thursday that John Coughlin climbed into her bed after a party at a skating camp and began kissing and groping her. Coughlin was 22 at the time and took his life in January at 33.

Wagner says she was “absolutely paralyzed in fear.”

Wagner won an Olympic team bronze medal in 2014 and is now retired from competitive skating. She says she feared speaking out earlier because she competes in a sport in which judges determine success. She told the newspaper two factors helped change her mind — the emergence of the #MeToo movement and Coughlin’s coaching suspension in January by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an organization dedicated to protecting young athletes from abuse.

USA Today also reported that Coughlin’s former pairs partner from 2004 through ’07, Bridget Namiotka, posted on Facebook in May that Coughlin “sexually abused” her for two years.

Police arrested Ryder Cup player Thorbjorn Olesen on suspicion of sexually assaulting a female passenger while she was asleep on a flight to London, intoxication and failing to comply with the orders from the airline crew, British newspapers reported.

The Sun and the Independent cited Metropolitan Police as saying the 29yearold was arrested when the British Airways flight landed Monday at Heathrow. Olesen played in the World Golf Championships event in Memphis last weekend, in which he tied for 27th.