A Guardian link about the abusive culture in gymnastics, particularly 2008-2016, 75% of victims were girls. Horrible.
www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jun/16/british-gymnastics-report-anne-whyte-review-uk-sport-gymnasts-abused
Feminism: chat
Gymnastics abuse (TW; physical abuse of children, eating disorders)
PermanentTemporary · 17/06/2022 05:40
sashh · 17/06/2022 06:51
@parrotonmyshoulder sorry you were treated that way and more sorry you are still suffering.
Moj1t0 · 17/06/2022 06:54
It's awful, those poor girls. I seem to remember a discussion on MN quite some time ago (possibly even on this board, or one of its previous versions) suggesting that this kind of abusive behaviour was standard in ballet too.
parrotonmyshoulder · 17/06/2022 06:14
I was a top school and county level gymnast in the 80s and 90s. All of this was going on at that level too. I thought I’d (mentally) moved on from it, but finding it impossible to talk about the current findings, so perhaps I haven’t.
drpet49 · 18/06/2022 12:14
“but the reality is, they basically threatened that if you complained, you were off the squad and your gymnastics was over.”
^Yet parents still allowed their child to take part. I could and would never do that to my kid.
BlusteryLake · 18/06/2022 13:09
This seems to be endemic in all the "early realisation" sports, ie ones you reach Olympic level as a teenager because the children are so much younger when they reach elite level, therefore easier to manipulate. It's disgusting that these coaches put their own careers ahead of the wellbeing of these girls and boys and I am delighted they are getting their comeuppance.
CoastalWave · 17/06/2022 20:27
I'm feeling really awful about it. My daughter only quit gymnastics recently. She is mentally damaged from gymnastics. She suffered awful abuse. She also witnessed awful abuse. We were at 4 different clubs in total over 6 years, so it wasn't one club - it's the culture. It's ingrown in the coaches. The ones who aren't like this basically sneak around and can't be themselves.
Worse - it's the culture that parents are basically groomed too. If you tell anyone or if anyone is mentioning this, they say things like 'oh no way would I let that happen to my daughter, no one would speak to her like that etc etc - but the reality is, they basically threatened that if you complained, you were off the squad and your gymnastics was over.
Age 5 my daughter was left stood on the high beam for 2 hours - because she hadn't got up the courage to do a cartwheel on there. She had tears streaming down her face. Not only did not one of the watching parents intervene, when I arrived I was then yelled at by the coach to say how disrespectful she had been and she was 'this close' to being kicked off the squad. I just accepted it. :(
Age 6 - she was stretched to the point where she was in physical pain - the coach was laughing at her.
Age 7 she was told (in front of a full room of gymnasts) that her lunch box was unacceptable and that she wasn't eating the diet of an elite athlete and she was a failure - she would definitely be too fat to swing around the bars.
I'm thinking of ringing the helpline they've put on just because both of us are still so mentally damaged from all of this. How did I allow it to continue?
drpet49 · 18/06/2022 12:14
“but the reality is, they basically threatened that if you complained, you were off the squad and your gymnastics was over.”
^Yet parents still allowed their child to take part. I could and would never do that to my kid.
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