Gymnasts recount abuse from coach
Practices at Everest Gymnastics in North Carolina, one of the sport’s top training centers, often began with coach Qi Han calling out which of the girls, including some as young as 9, would be placed in the “fat group.”
Those gymnasts were assigned extra workouts to lose weight, four gymnasts who trained with Han within the past six years said, but they didn’t dare complain. They tried not to cry, and if they did, the gymnasts said, Han might call them stupid and unworthy of his attention. Or he might throw a shoe or a cellphone at them. Or angrily shove them off a high bar as he stood on a raised platform.
Han would lose his temper nearly every day, keeping his athletes on edge as they wondered when — and how — he would explode, the gymnasts said.
Parents were rarely around. They had been barred from practices.
Last month, Ashton Locklear, 20, a member of the national gymnastics team, told the New York Times that Han had verbally abused her — a pattern that escalated to an incident in which he threw a cellphone at her. She left the gym earlier this year.
Since then, four other former Everest gymnasts have come forward with similar accusations, describing patterns of emotional and physical abuse that have been overshadowed in the sport by concerns about sexual abuse, which has come to the surface in recent years.
The growing awareness of abuse in the sport was prompted by the conviction of Larry Nassar, the former national team doctor for USA Gymnastics, who was accused of sexually abusing more than 150 gymnasts. He was sentenced in January to 40 to 175 years in prison.
Han is not accused of sexual abuse.
Still, the former Everest gymnasts said his treatment of them went beyond the hardcharging style typical of many coaches in the sport, with devastating consequences.
Two parents of former Everest gymnasts and Monica Avery, a coach and gym owner in North Carolina, also reached out, saying they had reported Han’s abuse to USA Gymnastics years ago, with no apparent consequences for him.
Han immediately cut off a phone call from a reporter last week, and did not return voice or text messages that informed him of the accusations against him.
In a statement released Friday, Everest Gymnastics said, “We do not tolerate abuse of any kind in our facility.”
“If any credible abuse allegations exist,” the statement said, “Everest Gymnastics encourages those parties to contact USA Gymnastics.”
The four gymnasts who came forward — Taylor Laymon, who attended the University of Pittsburgh on a full gymnastics scholarship; Allee George, a four-time allaround state champion who said she quit the sport because of Han’s behavior; and two other gymnasts who asked to remain anonymous because they still compete and fear retribution — said they carried emotional scars from Han’s mistreatment.
“Han would kind of brainwash you into thinking all of his weird ways of disciplining you were normal, like when he would stretch your shoulders past your breaking point until you screamed, but still wouldn’t stop,” George, now a professional dancer, said. “Once you’re in there, it’s hard to get out and it’s kind of hard to explain.
“The people he coaches turn out to be good gymnasts. But they don’t turn out mentally good.”