US gymnasts tell AP sport rife with verbal, emotional abuse

They were little girls with dreams of Olympic gold when they started in gymnastics. Now they're women with lifelong injuries, suffocating anxiety and debilitating eating disorders.

They are the other victims of USA Gymnastics.

Thirteen former U.S. gymnasts and three coaches interviewed by The Associated Press described a win-at-all-cost culture rife with verbal and emotional abuse in which girls were forced to train on broken bones and other injuries. That culture was tacitly endorsed by the sport's governing body and institutionalized by Bela and Martha Karolyi, the husband-and-wife duo who c...

 

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