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GLORIA VISERAS,
FORMER OLYMPIC GYMNAST
He abused me from age 12 to 15 in the gym, in the car, at hotels, always in places where he had full uncontrolled access. Until one day when I was 15, I got to my father’s car in tears and my father went for him in the locker room. He did not let me go back. As Marilyn Monroe said, “It is easier to smile than to explain why I am so sad.”
RACHEL DENHOLLANDER,
AMERICAN GYMNAST
“This is what abusers do,” they explained. “Everything centers on them. Even when they apologize, they keep the focus on themselves—how they’ve been wronged or what they think they’ve done well—to try to shift the focus away from the pain they’ve caused. They don’t truly take responsibility for anything.” Abusers pass the blame to others, they told me. But that’s not what love does. Love cares first about the harm done to the other person. Unlike abuse, love does not excuse or minimize wrongdoing.” (Rachael Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics)
MARINE PERICHON,
GYMNASTE RHYMIQUE SUISSE
'We were constantly and aggressively insulted...you're a piece of ...., you're fat, you're useless, you're lame, you're retarded, you're mentally challenged... "
KAREN LEACH,
IRISH SWIMMER
If he got me in a room on my own, he would either lock the door or jam the door, but I wasn't able to get out.
He would do what he wanted to do to me until he was finished, as he would say, "checking my body". He said it was all to do with the progression of my swimming and I was stuck there until he would tell me to leave.
SARAH ABITBOL,
CHAMPIONNE FRANCAISE DE PATINAGE
'He used to come in the night when I was sleeping with my stuffed animals and wake me up with his flashlight.'
PAUL STEWART,
ENGLISH FOOTBALLER
"One day, travelling in the car, he started to touch me. It frightened me to death, I did not know what to do, I tried to tell my parents not to let him in but I was only 11..."
“From then, it progressed to sexually abusing me, he said he would kill my mother, my father, my two brothers if I breathed a word about it. And at 11 years old, you believe that."