Alison Mau hears from former national-level coach
I’m fed up with years of injustice for these kids
After a week of ducking for cover and gaslighting all and sundry, it looks like the governing bodies of New Zealand gymnastics have finally done something right. On Thursday, Gymnastics NZ (GNZ) buckled to demands for an independently-run inquiry into allegations of abhorrent abuse of young athletes in the sport.
It took way too long to get there. Until Thursday’s announcement, GNZ CEO Tony Compier was still clinging to the fantasy that his organisation was equipped to deal with the gathering storm of complaints and could be trusted to handle things on its own. Parents, athletes and their advocates, including the national Athlete’s Federation, quickly made clear they did not believe that for a moment.
If you’re under the impression the allegations against coaches and management have come out of nowhere and you’re thinking, ‘why now?’, allow me to give you a bit of background. Strange as it may sound, we have Netflix to thank for the searchlight finally illuminating the murky corners of gymnastics training in this country.
On July 4, Netflix released Athlete A, a documentary chronicling the abuse (both sexual and physical) that ran rife in the multiple- Olympic-gold-medal-winning US gymnastics programme, for decades. Four days later I downloaded and watched the film, and was stunned by the grotesque way these girls, barely out of childhood, had been treated.
Plainly, I was not the only one.
By Monday June 29, Stuff journalist Zoe¨ George was taking calls and messages from Kiwi women - former gymnasts and coaches at club and elite level – who saw their own experiences echoed closely in the film. The calls kept coming, plunging George into an investigation that broke on Stuff the following Saturday. Along with colleague Dana Johannsen, she has published close to a dozen separate articles – including another in today’s Sunday Star-Times Sport section – in the eight days since, as the scandal gathered force.
And scandal it most definitely is. George has heard stories of athletes pushed to the point of permanent disability, constant fatshaming leading to life-long eating issues, extreme bullying, refusal to properly investigate complaints, and allegations of retaliation against athletes or parents who do complain.
I spoke to one former national-level coach this week whose story of bullying and intimidation is hair-raising. This woman has a long career in gymnastics coaching, was a gymnast herself before that, but pulled her daughter out of the sport and retired altogether after running foul of the GNZ culture, she claims.
It all started, she says, in the 1990s when eastern European coaches were first brought into her discipline – rhythmic gymnastics. New Zealand coaches were heavily influenced by their methods, and began to train athletes like the European coaches ‘‘because it was accepted that was what made champions’’.
‘‘It became normal to be weighed at the beginning of training, and at the end of training, and if we hadn’t lost weight we hadn’t trained hard enough and we were punished. We would wear plastic shopping bags inside our training gear to make ourselves sweat more and never drank (water) as water put on weight.’’
Ironically, the methods did not work, she says, and the results have slid from the glory days – gold and bronze at the 1990 Commonwealth Games – to a ‘‘dismal’’ performance in recent times.
She describes the politics of the sport as ‘‘disgusting’’ and claims that comes from the top, with examples of high-level executives punishing those who push back. She wants accountability: ‘‘I’m fed up with years of injustice for these kids.’’
The acknowledgement that we are mostly talking about exactly that – kids – has also raised obvious questions about the role parents have in this scandal.
Some on social media felt the situation was entirely the fault of pushy parents; others that the children involved would have been better protected had they had closer relationships with their parents.
There will be some validity to both of those stances, and we all can name examples of horror ‘‘stage mothers’’ or fathers who try to live their own failed dreams through their children. Just this week, an awful example in another sport hit the news.
Certainly, now is the time for every parent concerned to have a long think about their own culpability.
However, as with most situations like this one, the truth will always fall somewhere in the middle. Stuff’s journalists have spoken to many parents who say they are banned, or strongly discouraged, by coaching staff from watching their children train; and many parents will have trusted the ‘‘experts’’ to do their best by the children in their charge.
Without a parent’s direct supervision, it’s too easy for a child who wants to please, and wants to do well, to buckle to a coach’s demands whatever they may be. Those same children won’t necessarily report back to their parents because they’ve come to understand the demands are ‘‘normal’’ behaviour in their sport.
There’s a strong urge, when allegations surface like they have this week, to defend the sport you’ve put your time and love into. This #notallcoaches attitude has led some senior administrators into victim-blaming – a path that might feel good in the moment but will not lead to a better, stronger sporting culture in the end.
A proper clean-out is due, and it’s plain we are way past the point where Gymnastics NZ can be trusted to handle that on its own. The move by GNZ to appoint former world antidoping head David Howman to lead the review appears to be a good step.
Yesteday it was announced all complaints into alleged abuse in gymnastics will be handled independently of the sport’s governing body.
Judging from the contact made with journalists in just the past eight days, Howman might well have to wade through hundreds of stories before he can conclude his review – but for the sake of the sport and the generations of children yet to step into the gym, it will be time well spent.