Abuse Victims Demand USA Gymnastics Recognize the Value of a Woman | Tumaini Carayol | sport

AAt the end of last month, Simone Biles connected to Twitter and pointed out the nonsense of the current chapter in her life. While on her way to a gymnastics training camp in the United States to continue preparations for the Olympic year in which she will compete for the USAG and for which everything success will bring in millions of dollars, she tweeted in despair on what she considers the persistent failures of the USAG and her guilt in her sexual abuse: still want answers from the USAG and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee . I would have both wanted an independent investigation as much as the survivors and me. High anxiety. Hard not to think about everything I don't want to think about !!

A few days later, former Biless teammate Aly Raisman appeared on Today, projecting identical frustration. Raisman admitted that conducting these interviews and constantly reopening her wounds makes her anxious and exhausted. But she was there again, putting on a brave face and tossing her own comfort aside as she implored the USAG to publish documents describing the events of the Larry Nassar scandal: They're just trying to push it under the rug and hope people will forget it when people watch the Olympics this summer.

The two gymnasts reacted to the fact that the USAG finally published its proposed settlement for the 517 people who came forward as survivors of the Nassars abuse. While Nassars' former employer, Michigan State University, has settled his lawsuit for $ 500 million, this proposal is valued at $ 217 million and would divide payments into four separate levels, ranging from 1.25 million dollars for athletes such as Biles and Raisman, who competed in Olympic competitions or world championship teams, at a meager $ 82,550 for applicants for merchandise. According to the Orange County Registry, the proposal was contempt of gymnasts and their families involved in the case and they will likely vote unanimously to reject it.

It is difficult to think of a more symbolic failure. All these months ago, in January 2018, as the army of survivors marched on Michigan to read aloud their impact statements on the Nassars affair, the former gymnast and whistleblower Rachael Denhollander challenged judge Rosemarie Aquilina and the world to watch at home with a simple question: how much is a little girl worth?

While Denhollander claimed that little girls were worth everything, for many the figure of $ 82,500 seems a good summary of how this case was handled. The USAG, which filed for bankruptcy in December 2018, said the amount of $ 212 million was the figure to which its insurance would agree. But for the lowest level gymnasts, this does not even represent the considerable sums that many have spent on therapy and medical interventions following their abuse.

Denhollander wasn't really talking about monetary value in Michigan, but rather about the full-blown justice that she and her surviving companions deserve. In this proposal, money is the main objective. One of the details that caused the most outrage was the stipulation that the settlement would release former USAG general manager Steve Penny, the former coordinators of the USAG. American team Marta and Bela Karolyi, officials of the American Olympic and Paralympic Committee, former American coach Don Peters and many others of responsibility despite a Congressional report qualifying the handling of the case by various organizations like hiding in mind.

As this case continues, the flow of victims' revelations continues. In recent months, Olympic bronze medalist Tasha Schwikert, who joined the suit in 2018, has been discuss your own trauma alongside his former coach, Cassie Rice. According to Schwikert, she was stretching overhanging just before the 2000 Olympics when Bela Karolyi taunted her as he physically pushed her further into the split. The Schwikerts shank tendon tore and was torn from the bone. The fear generated by the head coaches naturally meant that Schwikert had said little about his injury and had competed in Sydney with his injury diagnosed. Until then, she was sent directly to Nassar where he abused her.

Schwikerts' experiences in 2000 were strangely similar to the system described later by Raisman and most others. The astronomical workloads that broke their bodies, the hordes of snacks they would hide so as not to starve under immense physical pressure, the obsession with weight that would lead the Karolyis to rummage in Marta Karolyi's bags and commentary still on his mind today: lighter athletes fly higher. Schwikert eventually suffered from bulimia nervosa for a decade until she was determined to stop in fear that it would kill her.

After hiding her vulnerabilities from view for years, Schwikert says that now she's just trying to be real. His reality is simple: it wasn't a problem Larry. It was a sick fucker, okay? But that's not a problem Larry. How could Larry have done what he did? He had to do what he did because of this environment.

As usual, things come back to the central question. How much is a little girl worth? One might hope that a little girl is worth more than money, she is worth the responsibility and every last word of the truth. They are worth the transparency in order to understand exactly why the environment failed them and so that it does not happen again. A whole Olympic cycle from the time Denhollander first denounced the USAG in 2016, they also deserve a resolution so that Raisman, Biles, Denhollander and so many others no longer have to continually put their trauma in the spotlight looking for something as simple as justice.