What follows is a complaint letter sent to the Ethics & Welfare Officer at British Gymnastics in 2015. It paints a vivid and disturbing picture of life in an abusive gym. It was written within days of the children being withdrawn. Further incidents were provided in follow up emails along with the full contact details …
Emotional & Physical Abuse in a BG Gym: The Complaint That Achieved…Nothing Read More »
Gymnastics starts early. Often children start a gymnastics class before they even start school. If the child shows promise, the hours increase. Gymnastics becomes as much a part of life as school, sleeping and eating. Unfortunately, in too many gyms, both child and parent are slowly but surely groomed; inculcated into a culture of abuse …
Coaching Abuse: The Dirty, Not-So-Little Secret In Gymnastics Read More »
Below is letter sent March 6 2020 to MP, Emily Thornbury, detailing the need for both an independent investigation into the culture at British Gymnastics and the establishment of a similarly independent sports ombudsman. Currently, parents (remember that many victims in sport abuse are young children) and athletes have nowhere to turn when the system …
Call for an Independent Investigation into British Gymnastics Read More »
We’ve been talking a lot about gymnastics the past few days and I asked one of my daughters what her worst gym memory was, wondering which of the awful things that I knew she’d endured she might choose. She surprised me though, and immediately picked something that happened not to her, but to her teammate. …
Gymnastics: Physical Abuse, Witnessing Abuse and the Futility of Complaining Read More »
So I really didn’t think I would end up doing this and was honestly ready take it all to my grave but because of recent events I have decided to speak up about my experience as an elite gymnast and the bullying as well as verbal, emotional and sometimes physical abuse I was either subjected …
Thanks to campaigning groups such as Women’s Aid, domestic abuse in the form of coercive control was made illegal in 2015. This legislation brought adult women, suffering in emotionally abusive relationships, greater recognition, protection and potentially the opportunity for redress. The campaign and subsequent legislation highlighted the fact that abuse needn’t be overtly physical in …
2020 is a year that will mark us all for obvious reasons. But for some it will also be the year that Athlete A was released and a surge of outrage rose through the gymnastics world, not least in the UK. In a response to the wave of disquiet and disgust, Jane Allen, CEO of …