“Players are not machines” https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54307869

I was lying in bed this morning celebrating Manchester United’s bizarre manner of victory yesterday and struck by reading an article on the BBC where Guardiola was lamenting on the mounting injuries in the Manchester City team.

It’s no secret that footballers will often be encouraged to play through pain and will play injured. Last season Marcus Rashford continued to play (wrongly in many people’s opinion) with a back injury. Sometimes the passion for the game will mean that the footballers themselves are the ones making the decision to continue playing, and recently we have seen the introduction of regulations regarding concussion injuries where the decision has to be made by the team doctor.

The same cannot be said for gymnastics. At this year’s Chinese National Championships Guan Chenchen fell awkwardly from bars but carried straight back on, and in the Rio 2016 Olympics Ellie Downie under-rotated on floor and landed on her neck, but still continued with her routine. She also cited signs of concussion at the time.

Whilst this isn’t a true story there may well be cases of this, it is mentioned in the ABC Family series Make it or Break it, where Sasha Belov (Neil Jackson) highlights that when he was coaching back in Romania a young gymnast suffered concussion. Afterwards she seemed fine, so he highlights that he gave the family the choice of whether to take her home or take her to the hospital and they decided to take her home. Within an hour she had died. How many chances do we need to take before this happens? Concussion is serious.

I have yet to hear of any footballers playing on a broken leg. I’m sure someone will correct me if this is the case. Dominique Moceanu was left frightened to speak out about the unbearable pain she was in and to train on a broken leg just weeks before the Olympic games.

We do perhaps joke about how footballers are wrapped in cotton wool, especially when they roll around in agony allegedly feigning injury from an invisible foul, but at least when they are injured they are taken seriously. We don’t see Jose Mourinho telling his own players to stop pretending to be injured – maybe the opposition – although even with serious injuries all players and managers will show concern.

It comes down to this. A team loses a player who is a top penalty taker in the final minute of extra time due to a broken leg and the match goes to penalties as a result. Does the manager insist the player remains on the field to take a spot kick with their other uninjured leg and do this with one leg or do they rely on someone else?  I appreciate the comparison to Kerri Strug was that they didn’t have a back-up person to come on and vault, but the bottom line is keeping the injured player on would never happen. So why is it okay elsewhere?

I go back to Pep’s quote about players not being machines. Machines are getting more and more capable of being human, but it’s not the other way round. I think we are in danger of forgetting that. We have to understand that every human is an incredibly complex array of genes. No one person is the same. They will think and feel and respond to pressure in a different way. One remark might affect one person in a completely different way to the next. And a coach has to work out how to get the best out of each of those gymnasts, not assume that they will be the same.

I was heartened to hear that FIG are going to be running an e-conference on this at the end of October, but I’ve yet to see details on how to join this. If they are truly to act to make positive change happen, then this will only be the start.

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Having followed the current conversation on abuse in gymnastics, I have put together the following thoughts on the mentoring system of training.

For context, I came into gymnastics coaching a few years ago having done 4-6 hours of recreational gymnastics a week as a child in the seventies. My perception is that the abusive culture described by elite gymnasts pervades all gymnastics-like sports even at the recreational level and may arise with the general population rather than within the sporting community. In particular, the tendency to minimise children’s perception of pain and injury.

The mentoring system: the web of social obligation that binds all coaches together and excludes outsiders from the world of gymnastics

In order to qualify as a Level 1 Assistant Gymnastics Coach, you have to attend 4 training days and complete a series of assignments over a few months which ends with an examination. At the training days and the exam, you have to bring gymnasts along to work with. To guide you through the course, the assignments, and to prepare for the exam, you must find a mentor. The mentor must be a British Gymnastics coach, at Level 2 or above. The gymnasts must be able to demonstrate all the skills for Level 1. The mentor does not normally get paid for serving in this role, nor do the gymnasts get paid.

Level 1 only allows you to assist a Level 2 or higher coach. If you get a Level 2 qualification, you can run a beginner gymnastics class in a school or community hall, or even start a whole new gymnastics club. For Women’s Artistic the skills include: round-off back handspring tuck back salto on floor; upstart, cast towards handstand, and clear circle on bars; handspring vault; cartwheel 1/4 turn tuck back salto dismount from beam.

To qualify as a Level 2 Coach, the process is similar to Level 1, but the mentor must be Level 3 or above, and naturally the gymnasts must be able to demonstrate all the Level 2 skills. The mentoring role includes operational time in the gym, so the club management also has to agree. Few gymnasts can demonstrate the Level 2 skills, and those who can are all in competition teams, so the mentor has to approve the gymnasts and then ask them and their parents on behalf of the trainee coach.

All big gymnastics clubs have a continuous supply of teenagers keen to train as coaches. They can qualify as Level 0 at 14 years, Level 1 at 16, and Level 2 at 18. They seem ideal: with recent and often current experience of gymnastics training, they are familiar with progressions, supporting techniques, and terminology used by the club. They may have been attending sessions at the club for ten years or longer, so they are already well-known to the senior coaches, and may be friends with the younger gymnasts who can demonstrate for them.

Teenagers typically get not only mentoring but also, they get coach training fees which for Levels 1 and 2 Coaching, plus the required Safeguarding and First Aid comes to over £1000. Some clubs will pay these fees in exchange for a contract binding them to continue to work for the club on pay that might seem low to any outsider but which is more valuable for them as they can combine travel to both training and work, and it is a familiar environment to begin their working life in.

In this way, the mentoring system produces coaches who are legally and financially bound to be loyal to their club, and who have little or no experience of the world outside. If they have concerns about coaching behaviours or incidents that they witness, they are in an awkward position to speak out.

The main reason adults start training as coaches is when their own children ask to do gymnastics. There’s a shortage of gymnastics classes so most clubs have long waiting lists with some children staying on several lists from age 3 to age 10. Training as a coach and volunteering is often the only way to get your child into a class.

Adult coach trainees have a great deal to offer. They may be qualified teachers or educators in other sports and activities. They may have medical qualifications which afford them greater understanding of the human body. They may know about business management and employment law.

For would-be coaches coming into gymnastics from outside of the sport, competing for mentoring time with the teenagers is tough. But most of all, they have to convince the Head Coach that they will support them and their club. If you have concerns about the club or coach, you might not feel they are ideal mentors. If you speak out about your concerns on an informal level, then asking for mentorship would be somewhat awkward.

In this way, it seems to me that the mentoring system has manifold consequences:

• Firstly, it binds coaches together in a web of social obligation. Before a coach can qualify, they can’t challenge the status quo as they probably won’t get mentored. After they qualify, they owe their mentor for helping them to qualify.

• Secondly, coaching tends to be dominated by people who came into coaching as teenagers direct from competitive gymnastics, with little experience of the wider world.

• Thirdly, coaches who stay in spite of feeling uncomfortable may find themselves in situations where the harsh coaches criticise them and contradict them in front of parents and gymnasts, who may come to mistrust their abilities as a coach.

• Fourth, crucially, anyone who feels uncomfortable and asks questions leaves gymnastics and therefore is not around to question any more.

• Fifth, it makes it extraordinarily hard for anyone to open a new gymnastics club with a different ethos.

To sum up: the mentoring system excludes newcomers from the sport and binds coaches together in a way that makes informal challenges awkward, and deters formal reporting of abuse.

The minimisation of children’s’ experience of pain, injury and illness

My perception is that children’s experience of pain and illness is commonly minimised by adults in all settings, including professional medical settings with trained and qualified staff. There is a widespread tendency for adults to undiagnose children even where they have a formal clinical diagnosis, and to sneer at adults who attend to children’s signs and symptoms. It is significant that adults who minimise children’s suffering seek support from other adults in this bullying way. An adult who might be expected to have some professional understanding of injuries can provide false reassurance.

In gymnastics, even at the recreational level, the potential for children to injure themselves slightly is high. Serious injuries cannot be completely eliminated. However, where a rec gymnast has a one hour class once a week, if they are hurt or ill, they have a week to recover. If they are still unwell after a week, they tend to refuse to go to gym and the situation ends there.

In competitive gymnastics, and more so in the elite track, the potential for children to injure themselves is greater because they are trying to do more difficult and dangerous skills, and many more repetitions. Many gymnasts believe they have to limit their weight, and do so by eating food that is not only lacking in energy but also lacking a wide range of nutrients. The extraordinary high number of hours that elite gymnasts spend indoors deprived of sunlight ought to be investigated as a potential cause of vitamin D deficiency – which may lead to weakened bones. Thus, competitive level gymnasts are more likely to be injured, the injuries are likely to be worse, and the training schedule is likely to have little recovery time built in.

When a competitive gymnast is hurt or ill, their desire to continue training may be influenced by their parents and their coach. In this situation, the general tendency to dismiss children’s reports of pain reaches new levels. If a coach tells the parent the child is fine to train when they really are not, then the parent may respond by pulling the child right out of gymnastics altogether. As this may happen early in the athlete’s development – when they are seven or eight years old – by the time the athlete is nine or ten years, all the athletes left in the competitive programme are those whose parents comply with the harsh training regime. Thus training on injuries is normalised within the child-athlete’s immediate community.

Since minimisation of children’s’ experience of pain is common in the wider community, the only way to protect children is to have a robust system of checking and ensuring that child-athletes are kept healthy and safe. Education is not enough, there has to be enforcement. British Gymnastics has clear policies which if followed would keep children safe. Most parents would be astonished to learn that British Gymnastics does not have any programme of inspection to ensure that gymnastics clubs are in fact complying with the standards set out in the policies.

If you would like your story or thoughts to be shared on this blog please email blog@innermagic.co.uk

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“I’m hearing terrible stories about Acro gymnastics. You’re not hearing them because people are terrified (literally) to speak out, even anonymously. They say acro is so toxic, ‘incestuous’ and cult-like that they feel certain they will be identified. Should any acro gymnasts or parents wish to speak out…..and if you wish to post a guest blog…” Twitter, August 2020.

“I think because the acro world is smaller, and everyone knows everyone, they are even more frightened than WAG & MAG to speak out in case they are identified”. Twitter, August 2020.

I am the parent of a former elite competitive acrobat. I recognise what’s described above so well that it took my breath away reading it. We left acrobatics some years ago but there is a legacy of issues from the abuse my child endured, that remains to this day. It has affected my child most obviously but also our family and friends so powerfully it feels utterly gut wrenching each time it is re-visited. And detailing the abuse would take a while and another blog to list them all. So just to say that if you’ve read the excerpts of gymnasts & parents from all disciplines and across the world through the #Gymnastalliance movement describing physical and emotional abuse – well, the list from the acro world will be familiar: the body shaming, excessive weighing & recording of weight, the forced stretching, the mismanagement of injuries, the training on serious injury and through illness, the encouragement to set aside school studies, the long hours, overtraining, lack of rest or downtime/offloading of training when required, the favouritism, the haranguing, the belittling, the demeaning, the explosions of violent temper etc.

What I’d like to try and address in this piece is the culture in Acro, with specific reference to the 4 descriptions used by the tweeter above – toxic, incestuous, cult-like and it being a small world. It is indeed all of these things, and goes a long way in explaining the reticence of those in acro to speak out.

Toxicity

A case in point from recent memory is the press, media and social-media coverage on the Neil Griffiths case over the years but which started in 2014. There are various links to the case in the local & national press from the time. As Warriors in Leotards has recently highlighted, the narrative seemed to be dictated by the coach himself with help from a funded campaign by supporters and possibly assisted by a/his(?) legal team or PR firm. Faced with a coach being able to access broadsheets, tabloids, BBC radio, local news to spin their version – what hope for anyone thinking of raising their head above the parapet and coming forward now with an acro complaint, even as part of a larger movement now encompassing gymnastics generally? As Warriors in Leotards went on to muse, the vitriol and what seemed like an organised ‘campaign of hate’ by the coach’s supporters was bewildering to watch. Like Warriors in Leotards, I too can only try and imagine what those complainants & their families endured then, and probably still endure to this day having been labelled as bitter, resentful and disaffected.

As is evident now through #gymnastalliance, what is interesting is that back then, many of this coach’s supporters conflated their ‘good’ experience with a lack of understanding that ‘bad’ things might have happened to those particular gymnasts. I know from experience it is perfectly possible for both to exist at the same time. My child was successful. The club was successful. There were good times. My child was also emotionally abused and the environment was toxic.

These types of Acro supporters are still prominent and vociferous on social media in 2020. Their naysaying as apologists for abuse under the guise of ‘tough training’ really does not engender confidence in those like me wanting to come forward now. It was a toxic world in Acro when my child was competing. It still feels that way now.

Incestuousness

Acro clubs across the country were and still are dominated by family alliances working closely together – spouses, partners, siblings, parents, cousins are all in prominent directorship, owning, coaching, judging, welfare & technical-committee roles within the discipline, sometimes within the same club. I know that this is not unusual in these days of networking – and it’s difficult to explain – but it felt decidedly like trying to break through the shackles of affiliations binding each to each other. Back in the day, it was difficult to know who to trust with a concern or complaint. Not a lot has changed from what I can see. If anything positions look even more entrenched. So why would current acrobats or their parents come forward now?

A recent influential former acrobat posted about their loyalty and allegiance to their former coaches, describing them as like ‘family’ and having been ‘raised’ by them. It would have struck a chord with many gymnasts who have been defined from a young age by their sport and who have invested so much of themselves emotionally, financially and time-wise into acrobatics that they see coaching staff as their family. If you didn’t know any better you’d think the aforementioned post was a challenge to anyone breaking the Acro-Mafia omertà of silence. It got shared as such, with dissenting voices firmly shut down.

In addition, many acrobats are introduced to Cirque du Soleil or other entertainment career opportunities by their coaching family. In some cases acrobats owe their adult careers to their former coaches perhaps being taken on as a next generation of young coaches at the club or being mentored by their old coaches in neighbouring areas.

It is such a complex area – asking these people to separate out their loyalties.

When one tries to raise a concern or challenge an individual coach’s behaviour, word gets out and suddenly it feels like you are taking on ALL of GB Acro with this extensive network of affiliations and loyalty coming in to play. It is truly astounding and somewhat scary.

Cult-like

Coach demanded unquestioning commitment to their methods. They were couched of course as tough training. Which it oft times was. It could also be abusive. Coach didn’t like the acrobats or parents thinking for themselves. It was easy whilst the gymnasts were children. It became more problematic the older they got. It was as though my child’s world was shrinking and being made smaller at just the time of their life when actually the world should have been their oyster. Parents were being sidelined & described as obstructive to ambitions, it was suggested that school work be set aside, school subjects be dropped, my child’s outside friendship group shrank substantially and soon my child became reliant on the acro bubble to meet all their needs.

My child is now an adult. And space, distance & time from the ‘bubble’ of acro has afforded them some clarity to recognise that what they endured was emotional abuse. But at the time, Coach was considered God-like, and yes, adored & loved by my child. To help my child manage and separate out these conflicting feelings has been a huge poison in our relationship. And I do liken it to escaping the grip of a cult. It is an ongoing battle with feelings of guilt & shame (in both of us) at being so successfully groomed that we still are not coming forward to openly report and are reduced to anonymous blogging. For my child, the negative experience they had and the behaviours of Coach are a huge elephant in the room that is not discussed even when they are amongst gym friends. Apparently, It is just not worth ‘going there’ they tell me as it would sour the friendship, tarnish the memories and spoil the triumphs. When I learnt this I found it truly heartbreaking. My child recognises that having left the sport, these people have no ‘actual’ power over them anymore – except, in their mind, they do. Still.

It’s a small world….and other stuff.

Common to all gymnastics disciplines is the power imbalance between coach & gymnast (invariably adult & child). At the young ages they train at, it is rare for there to exist a collaborative constructive relationship between the two, no matter how mature the child. That relationship is instead forged between coach & parent. I understand there’s a common saying amongst coaches that the job would be good ‘if it wasn’t for the parents!’ In our case, Coach not only had favourites amongst the acrobats but also amongst parents, depending on how useful they may be to Coach or the cause. It set parents against each other and led to divisions. As a parent I was regularly undermined by Coach which set child against parent too. As mentioned above, our relationship has taken us a great deal of rescuing once we left the sport. And I think it goes a long way to explaining why it is difficult for my child & I to agree the way forward regarding the matter of (hopefully jointly) reporting Coach’s damaging behaviours.

The culture was most definitely a toxic one. It exists to this day in the various Acro ‘factions’ that exist, that make speaking out so problematic. I have for example been made aware of Coach exerting influence over long retired former acrobats and their families by ringing around to determine where loyalties lie. And this coach is not the only coach doing this apparently. You think you’ve escaped. In fact your world feels quite small.

To add to the mix, acro is a partnership sport. Partnership, not team sport. Younger, smaller more immature gymnasts are ‘tops’ in working partnerships with a small number of older, bigger, more experienced and more mature children or young adults as bases. Some, though of course not all, became almost ‘henchmen’ of Coach. Like the school playground my child was aware of fagging (no other word for it, I’m sorry) occurring. That is, a pecking order of bullying, control and coercion by older acrobats both within and across partnerships in the squad that, if not encouraged, was not exactly discouraged by Coach as it suited Coach’s way of working where what happened in the gym stayed within the gym. (I should say at this stage as you will probably by now guess, that there was NO WATCHING permitted!) At a basic level for my child, out of misplaced loyalty to the partnership, they did not reveal certain low-level incidents of emotional abuse for fear the partnership would be broken up, partners feel let-down and ambitions abandoned. On a higher level, it meant that when serious incidents of abuse occurred or were witnessed, my child describes they and the whole squad as metaphorically parking these incidents elsewhere in their consciousness, and just feeling ridiculously relieved that it wasn’t them – this time. That and my child feels there were times when they were encouraged by Coach to engage in behaviours they now know to be abusive (like openly ridiculing a move or technique, a body shaming comment or hold a friend whilst they were inappropriately touched by Coach). As a result of this my child feels they were as equally to blame, colluded in behaviours or made things worse by their silence at the time. And on bad days, feels shamed into ‘forever’ silence.

The uniqueness of incidents of abuse & their settings and timings could identify my child, their club and their coach. There aren’t THAT many Acro squads in the country. As the original tweeter suggested and I’ve tried to explain, it is indeed a small world with a particularly toxic culture. As my child hasn’t yet reconciled all these complex feelings, sees no one else from Acro coming forward publicly and has not yet given me permission to report Coach or club, I am stuck feeling pretty impotent to effect any change. To the outside world my child is considered as having had a very successful career. But they also left the sport broken. I’m anonymously blogging to say that harm was caused to my child by the damaging behaviours of a coach and it was an Acro coach.

#gymnastalliance

If you have been affected by or witnessed maltreatment in the gymnastics setting you can speak to a trained NSPCC counsellor on 0800 056 0566.

If you would like your story to be shared on this blog please email blog@innermagic.co.uk

The post Acro Gymnastics Revealed: Toxic, Incestuous, Cult-like appeared first on GymPal.

“My story starts as a 9-year-old child, training in what is known as one of the UK’s top sports acrobatic centres.

I adored gymnastics and wanted to be the best, yet my experiences have tainted my love of the sport and left me with deep scars. To be able to write it all down and get my feelings and story across will be a tough task.

I will start with the strict weight regime we were all put under. We were weighed twice a session and our weight was recorded in a book, both at the beginning and at the end of the session. If we had put any weight on, we would be shouted at. We were also told to eat less at dinner time. This caused so much anxiety in me that when Easter came, I begged my mum to give away all my Easter eggs. I also used to run up and down the stairs when my mum was in the garden. I was desperate to keep my weight down. After every few laps of the stairs, I would weigh myself. Desperate not to be shouted at when I went to training later that day. At the age of 9, I had a dangerous and unhealthy obsession with my weight.

The forced stretching was another painful event in more ways than one. The older gymnasts were encouraged to stretch us. Incredibly dangerous and a situation in which many could take advantage, to which they did in a lot of cases. The girl I was paired with stretched me to the point where I could not walk in a straight line afterwards. Actually, this happened at every session, in fact sometimes twice a session, we were over-stretched to the point that we couldn’t walk properly. One time before a competition, she was trying to impress a boy she knew who did gymnastics at another club. She force-stretched me so hard I was sobbing. They were both laughing, taking enjoyment from my very obvious distress. I had to compete just moments later, pretending nothing was wrong.

I also saw the head coach force stretch a 4-year-old girl to tears. This little girl had come in just for a trial session. The child was crying in pain and pulling at her legs, against the coach but the coach did not stop and instead, kept that hard, stony, look on her face which still haunts me today.

The head coach also was not averse to slapping. I got a slap round the leg at the end of a routine as my leg was not straight enough. It left a mark and yet she showed no concern. It was like it was something she felt she could do knowing there would be no come back.

When I decided enough was enough and I wanted to leave the group, I was shamed into staying. I was told I would be letting people down and I ended up staying for a good few months more. I then decided to continue training in a group which was not as intense, and which was based at the same club. Unfortunately, things were not much better. My male coach told me I was fat regularly. I was 14 at the time and of course, not even remotely overweight. I remember going into the toilets in tears, a team mate came in with me and as there was a pair of scales in the toilets, I got on them, and I remember her adjusting them slightly so my weight would appear lower. She told me it was ok but it felt anything but. After my parents complained about this coach’s treatment of me, he claimed it was a joke and made it seem like I was making a fuss out of nothing. Looking back now, there were other behaviours that were very inappropriate. He would say to me ‘One day some guy is going to fall in love with those eyes’ and he would constantly be trying to touch me. He made me feel deeply uncomfortable and I tried to avoid being alone with him at all costs.

At the age of 15, I left the sport. It has without doubt left me with many scars. The forced stretching incident where my pain was laughed at most of all, but especially the focus and berating of my weight. I have worried about my body shape and food intake for many years. I also suffer from very low self-esteem.

We were not cared for or valued as people. We were objects, puppets to our coaches. We had no voice and were controlled. Seeing all the accounts come out of other gymnasts’ stories is so hard to read. There are so many similarities between them. The main theme seems to be that we were not cared for or treated as the children we were.

There needs to be a huge overhaul as to how we deal with coaches who overstep the line. Regular checks and child protection training for all staff working with gymnasts is key. Not just the coaches but also the receptionists and the cleaners who work at the clubs. The more people that are educated, the better we protect our future gymnasts.

Gymnastics is a beautiful sport, but it has been tainted by those who really should know better. No more silence. It’s time to tell our stories and overhaul the whole damaging culture. I emailed the integrity team and they said they would get back to me but never did.

Thanks for reading my story.”

#gymnastalliance

If you have been affected by or witnessed maltreatment in the gymnastics setting you can speak to a trained NSPCC counsellor on 0800 056 0566.

If you would like your story to be shared on this blog please email blog@innermagic.co.uk

The post The World of Acrobatic Gymnastics: The Lid Starts to Come Off… appeared first on GymPal.

To preface this account – I’ve tried to include rough dates where I remember. Our gym trained in a school sports hall so had to set out the equipment each session. Thursday we’d get out about half the equipment & return it later that night. Friday we’d set up the whole gym and take it down on Saturday evening. I’m just mentioning this at the outset as a lot of incidents refer to the setting up or down of the gym. Also, my mum is a ballet teacher and knows a lot about the human body due to her own training and now her work as a teacher. However, neither of my parents were “gym parents”, they were totally clueless about most things, and I stopped them coming to competitions from about age 11 because Coach said that they made me perform badly. 

Also, another point – I have no ill feelings towards the club we were with [club name removed]. A lot of what happened took place behind closed doors – Coach drove us to Sunday training where often she was the only adult in the gym. We arrived at gym an hour early and did conditioning upstairs in a little ballet studio where again Coach was the only adult. Before or after summer training or extra training we would be at Coach’s house, as she would drive us to and from [club name removed]. Often, we’d do our conditioning outside away from other people in the gym or even running up and down narrow corridors so that other people couldn’t see. Yes, some of her behaviours, especially the name calling & shouting took place in the gym where there were other coaches and adults, but it alone could maybe just about be considered tough coaching/tough love. However, there was so much under the surface – the stuff they saw in the gym was just the tip of an iceberg. Yes, I wish other coaches would have stepped in – and sometimes they did. But looking back, they can’t have known the extent of the abuse that was going on.

2002 – I was a bridesmaid at my Godmother’s wedding and had to miss a Saturday off gym for it. I was taken to and from gym by a childminder, so my parents barely ever saw Coach face to face. My mum said she had texted and emailed Coach about the date well in advance but told me to remind her on Friday night. Typically, I forgot and ran back into the gym at the end of the session to try and find Coach but couldn’t immediately see her. Head Coach saw me and asked what was up, I told her I needed to remind Coach that I would be away for a wedding tomorrow. She said no problem she’d remind her for me. 

I came into the gym the following Thursday and while we were setting up the gym, Coach was loudly bad mouthing about me (purposefully where I could hear) to other coaches. It was something along the lines of “even my own gymnasts don’t care enough to bother to tell me if they’re coming into training or not”. She mentioned that my parents were “clueless” and didn’t respect her. She said (again purposefully in my earshot) “I will just make her condition all of today anyway, will serve her right”. Sure enough, on each piece I was just told to do conditioning exercises. Each piece I asked if I could join in with the other girls or if I could do something different but she just ignored me, so I conditioned to try and get back into her good books. 

I went home and told my parents I couldn’t ever miss gym again.

2000-03 – early years – was called Mowgli because I ran in a funny way and was teased for looking like I “run through a jungle” while running for vault. It went on for a while and I told my parents I didn’t like it, and they asked Coach to stop calling me it. She said I’d have to get better at vault if I wanted to get rid of the name. One session she ranked us all from famous gymnasts down to me as Mowgli, and everyone laughed. Eventually she stopped using the name, but I think she got bored with it more than anything.  

2003 – one of our rival clubs was [club name removed]. One of the coaches there also judged at regional competitions. Coach didn’t like the coach. She’d joke about the quality of the girls from that gym and would threaten to send us there if we did “bad” gymnastics. We were preparing for a comp and I was having some trouble with a tumble landing. Coach said to just make sure to do that tumble into a certain corner because the judge was “too fat to see over her judging table so she won’t be able to see your legs anyway”. 

2004 – We were at regionals and Coach was judging on floor, so another coach was taking us round. I had a scary fall at a competition on my beam dismount – missed my foot on my second flick and landed on my neck. I lay there dazed for a bit and the coach came over and told me not to move while they checked me out. After a few mins Coach came over and apologized to [competition organizer] for leaving her judging table but she wanted to come and see her gymnast. She then lent down and told me quietly that I was embarrassing her and to get up and present at least so the competition could continue. I did and tried to carry on for floor but bailed mid routine on a punch front because my neck hurt too much. Coach told me afterwards that she was very disappointed I hadn’t continued because it made her look like a bad coach. 

2005 – like I mentioned previously we wouldn’t set out the whole gym on a Thursday. One session we were on beam and there were 2 high beams out and one low beam. The low beam just had some crash mats underneath it, but nothing covering its metal feet. I was practicing flick-flicks and on one went off-line and came off the beam, directly onto the foot of the beam. I’d broken my foot. I went straight to Coach and said my foot hurt, and she told me to stop making excuses for not wanting to do flick flicks. I tried to go back on beam but having my foot flat on the floor was extremely painful. Another teammate had broken her foot a few weeks before at school and was on a reduced training programme. When I went back to Coach saying I couldn’t continue, she laughed at me and said I was trying to copy [teammate] to get out of doing my series. I can’t remember the rest of that session, but when I got home my mum had a look at my foot that was already swelling and wanted to take me to A&E. I refused so we iced it & she strapped it up for the next day at school and gym.

When I entered the gym, first thing Coach did was laugh and tell me I was taking the mickey. I said I wanted to keep training just my foot hurt, and the tape helps a bit, but it didn’t really matter she kept laughing/calling my parents gullible for believing me. I ignored the pain as much as possible and tried to train through it. I don’t really remember much of the session again, apart from not doing tumble and conditioning instead, so it must have been very sore at that point. My mum picked me up that night and saw my foot (which was swollen & had a nasty looking lump out the side) and took me to A&E, where they said I’d broken it. I begged them to not put it in a cast or even a boot, as I didn’t want Coach to say I was making even more of a fuss. Mum tried to tell me I had an x-ray so she had to believe them, but I still refused a cast or boot. Eventually they agreed on one of those half boot support things & crutches. We’d been in the hospital until past midnight and my mum wanted me to take the next day off gym but I begged her to let me go.

I went in on crutches and my dad explained to Coach that I’d broken my foot, and the rest of that day she just sort of ignored me. No apology for not believing me or anything, no special programme like my teammate had, I was just left to do my own thing. She would still support me (e.g. with everyone else on bars) but just wouldn’t direct me in anything, I basically just did as much as I could do, and if I couldn’t do something then I’d condition by myself. After a week or so of this response from Coach, she started to “care”. At the time I thought “yes, she’s noticed how hard I’m working and how I’m still in the gym even though my foot is broken, and how I’m not complaining and not asking her for anything” and she “rewarded” me with an adapted programme/conditioning that I could do with my foot. There was a comment at one point “you see girls, I’m always watching to see if you work hard when you think I’m not watching. She has been pushing herself hard in conditioning and I want you all to learn from that”. We were basically all told there was always something we could do so there was no excuse to ever miss gym.

This mindset fed into how much holiday we were allowed too. The general rule was 2 days over Christmas (Christmas day & Boxing day), plus 2 weeks in summer. Then it became 1 week in summer. My parents put their foot down and said that I needed the break. Yet another reason Coach didn’t like them too much – they stood up to her, and as a result she would paint them as “clueless” parents who didn’t understand the sort of training gymnasts needed.

The day before a twin-piece competition (I realise a lot of regions don’t have these, but basically two gymnasts split the four pieces between them – it’s a fun friendly comp) I landed on a straight leg on beam and jarred my knee. Coach rolled her eyes and walked away. I rolled off the mat and another coach came over to see if I was ok. I was more upset and worried about what Coach would think if I couldn’t compete. I tried to explain this to the other coach, who was lovely and basically said if you can’t compete you can’t – your health is more important. She sat with me for a bit and calmed me down, and then took me back to beam to see how my leg was, if you can’t do your beam you won’t be able to compete tomorrow. I could walk on it but couldn’t fully straighten it and couldn’t take off any jumps or acro because it hurt too much and felt unstable. This coach very gently told me what I already knew – I shouldn’t compete. I was terrified to find Coach and tell her. I remember more eye rolling, and then being pulled into the equipment cupboard (a big empty space behind a roller shutter where all the gym equipment was kept during the week, but at this time on a Saturday was completely empty. It was the only place parents couldn’t see into from the viewing gallery). She shouted at me for letting my teammate down, for being weak, for always being injured & not being worth her time. I was then told I’d better go and condition as that was all I was good at. The cupboard was a good place to cry when Coach told us to get out of her face – it was either the cupboard or the dark hallway near the changing rooms.

My teammate ended up competing anyway as a guest and did all four pieces. She did really well on bars and beam, which were meant to be the pieces I would have competed, and as a result the next time in the gym everyone in the group was laughing at me and thanking me for getting injured so that my teammate could do so well. 

We had regular punishments for not doing skills or training hard enough. One vivid memory is of one of my teammates being scared to do free cartwheels on beam so until she did, we had to run around the gym. Bear in mind this was a sports hall so concrete floor, and we were barefoot. We weren’t allowed to stop for water or to go to the toilet, and my teammate on the beam was terrified and balling her eyes out. We ran for over an hour and a half. There was a dividing curtain between two halves of the sports hall, and we would run around the back of it because we could slow down a bit while we were hidden from view. Coach cottoned onto this after a while and started whacking at the curtain with her shoe if she saw us slowing down. I don’t think she ever made contact (at least I don’t remember contact), although one of my teammates did trip over a shoe that got thrown in front of us as we ran. 

Conditioning was a competition to see who she could break. We all wanted to be the strongest. I was incredibly competitive and also pretty strong, and that combination meant that I would usually push myself to breaking point if it meant being the last person in chin-up hold, or the last person to stop running, the person to do the most amount of press ups etc. 

Saturdays were usually 9-11:30 for conditioning, then 30 min lunch, then train until 4pm. Another club would sometimes come and train with us on Saturdays. I remember vividly them training with us on one particular conditioning session. We had to do 3 sets of 10 chin ups, hold chin up position for 10. 3 sets in a row. This was meant to be the last thing before lunch, so we’d already been going for almost 2 hours. If one person came down during the hold, we all had to get down and start again. We did this for over an hour. All of us were crying – basically weeping. There was always one person that couldn’t quite hold it for the final 10 seconds. I remember one time refusing to get down but it was like my fingers were slowly peeling off the bars of their own accord and I had to drop. Other groups went on lunch break, we were still trying to complete the final set. If you were the one who dropped you’d get screamed at, things like “you’ve failed, you’ve let your team down, you’re hurting them, they’re only being punished because you’re too lazy to do this”. Eventually we all managed and were allowed to go for lunch, I think it was about 1pm. I just remember sitting on the floor in the corridor dazed, arms too heavy to lift to my mouth to eat my sandwich, exhausted from crying just as much as the conditioning. 

2005 – my dad was driving me to gym on a Saturday morning and we were about 5 mins away when we got hit by another car. I was in the front passenger seat and the other car hit my side between the front and rear doors. I saw the car coming and so tensed up and shouted out. My dad checked I was ok and then jumped out and checked in with the other driver. They were doing all the exchanging details etc and I climbed across to get out the other side of the car. I was just standing near the car in shock. Another gym mum was driving past at the time and saw me, pulled over to check we were ok. My dad was quite flustered and when she offered to give me a lift to the gym we both said yes and off I went. I told Coach what happened when I arrived as I was about 15 mins late to the session, but she was more focused on me being late. At this point we trained at [a different club] on Sundays, which we all usually got dropped off at Coach’s house for and she would drive us the 45 mins there. I lived about 30 mins from our gym in the opposite direction and our car was a write off, so Coach asked me to call my parents and see if I could stay overnight with a teammate so I could still train the next day. I just remember calling my mum at work and saying, “oh so you know how we don’t have a car anymore” and she hadn’t been told yet so was more than a bit shocked! I stayed over with a friend and went to training the next day, and Coach dropped me home after too. I’d been complaining of neck pain on bars and back pain when punching on floor, but basically had just brushed it off as I didn’t want to come across as moaning. It didn’t get any better though over the next few weeks, so I went for a scan and was told I had had serious whiplash and as a result of ignoring it now had a bulging disc in my upper back/lower neck. I feel like my parents must have told Coach, but I don’t remember this at all, or remember training any differently. Eventually I got used to the pain. 

2006 – a joint summer camp with another gym, held at [club name removed]. We all slept in one big room upstairs, then had a morning and an evening session per day. On about the 3rd night, all us kids had gone to bed, but the coaches and parents were in the bar area. I felt very sick and ran to the toilets to throw up. A parent overheard and came through. I went and sat with the adults for a bit. After a while I went back to bed with a bowl. About half an hour later I threw up again, but this time there was blood in it. The same parent was very concerned and wanted to call my parents, but Coach said I would be fine in the morning. I remember being moved beds to be nearer the coaches, but I don’t fully remember the ins and outs of that night. In the morning I woke up with a blinding headache. I was in the front row of warm up/complex on the floor and it felt like the whole room was spinning. I asked if I could leave and get some water, and when I did I spoke to the same parent (they didn’t come into the gym but waited either upstairs or in the foyer). I let her call my parents but I made her promise not to tell them I’d been sick. I said to them I felt a bit funny but it was probably tiredness. I don’t remember much else of the day other than being let off doing my beam series/ going backwards on beam for that day. The rest of the camp is a bit of a blur and I don’t remember much. 

Challenge cup 2006 – I got a Facebook message from Coach a few days before Challenge Cup, which was due to be a Saturday, and was told that she can’t come to my competitions anymore because she had other kids to train. All the others were on the elite in-age pathway and by this point of the year were done with their major comps, so were solely focused on upgrades. I got upset – this was my own British qualifier and my coach was telling me I wasn’t important enough to her to bother coming. I told my parents how upset I was and they got in touch with her to say that they were angry and disappointed with her decision. The day of the comp, without warning, Coach showed up at my house with one of my teammates to drive me to the comp. The whole way, she said how I’d better make this worth their time, that I’d asked for teammate to be pulled out of her training to come and watch (I hadn’t) and I’d better qualify or else. So I arrived at the venue incredibly stressed. I knew qualifying would be tight because my vault was super basic as I’d not had time to train after a niggling injury, but I did know I could do it. Bars and beam went well. Vault was fine but very low score due to start value. Floor was my final piece and warm up had been pretty bad, I felt like I had no power. My floor routine was good, went into the final tumble but my flick went funny (I don’t know if I was overthinking things) and my hands barely touched the floor. I panicked and instead of a double twist I did a single. Coach was fuming when I came off the floor even though I tried to explain. I obviously lost 0.5 from my start value for not ending on a C value skill and ended up missing qualifying by 0.2. On the way home Coach made my teammate sit in the front seat and ignored me the whole time, apologising to teammate for the waste of her day, making comments about what she could have been doing instead. 

My parents came up against Coach a lot. They weren’t particularly involved in my gym career – they loved me and supported me in everything I wanted to do, but they never pushed me and they let me make my own decisions. It was also a bi product of their work patterns, as my mum as a ballet teacher worked evenings and Saturdays, so never really took me to gym, and my dad worked in the city only getting home around 7pm. I relied on lifts from other parents or a childminder to take me (plus my younger brother too young to stay home) to and from the gym. I’d stay over at a friend’s house on Friday nights so I could get to the gym earlier on a Saturday, and to eliminate two extra trips for my parents. I always got the impression Coach didn’t really like them, so I tried to limit the amount of time they had to spend together. My mum has a posh sounding accent and Coach would mock it in the gym, so I tried to make sure it was always my dad who spoke to her. My mum got incredibly nervous at competitions, and Coach said it made me perform badly, so I stopped my parents coming. I have basically no comp footage or pictures of me as a result. When Coach started to regulate our diets (she sent us home with a printout of what we were and weren’t allowed to eat), my mum said screw that. She had gone through similar at ballet school and didn’t want me to develop an eating disorder or negative body image. She said she would always cook healthy and nutritional meals, but would never limit my portion size, as surprisingly children who do sport every night a week get hungry (who would have thought!). She would openly say this to Coach, and as a result Coach would mock her to the other gym parents and use her as an example to get them on her side.  

2007 – During a competition I fell flat on my back on my bars dismount. I was winded and dazed but got up and carried on with the comp. For the next few weeks I was in a lot of pain but mainly doing drills that landed on my back (e.g. vault drills) or when I got out of breath. I noticed I was getting out of breath a lot more often. In the summer if the weather was good we would do some of conditioning outside and use the athletics track, and I remember only managing one lap when we were meant to do two of each circuit. A few weeks later mum was driving me back from the gym and I screamed when we went over a speed bump. I’d been seeing an osteopath regularly and we went to him who thought I might have a broken rib. We went and got an x-ray which confirmed I had broken a rib and it wasn’t settling (because I wasn’t resting at all) and it had punctured my left lung. I was told bed rest for a week, and then light training for 6 weeks until it was fully healed. I did the bed rest but as soon as I was back in the gym it was basically business as normal and I didn’t take it easy at all. This was around Sept/Oct time.  Challenge cup was coming up and I was determined to qualify for the British having missed out the previous year. My immune system was pretty low because of being ill and being on steroids for my breathing, so I caught a virus which made my breathing worse. I was told to “suck it up” in the gym. When we trained at [gym name removed] it was unbearable because of the dust from the pit and the heat in the gym (it’s basically a tin box heated by the sun all day), but we wouldn’t be allowed to go and get water if we ran out – it would be a lesson to us for not bringing enough water with us in the first place. It basically felt as though I had a stitch 100% of the time from my left side across and up my sternum. It got so bad that I couldn’t breathe if I lay down, so I’d sleep sitting up in a chair or propped up against the wall in bed. So, then I started having trouble sleeping or having the energy to get up out of bed because my body was using all of its energy to try and help me breathe. I went from being in the gym 24 hours a week, plus ballet, rugby and school sport, to not being able to go to school. From November onwards I was housebound and basically bedbound.

In the new year I eventually got diagnosed with costochondritis (inflammation of the cartilage around the sternum) and ME/CFS, which the specialist said was incredibly rare and worrying in someone so young. My mum would email Coach with updates but never really hear much back. I stayed connected with some of the girls through Facebook and texting but that was hard too. It must have been in the springtime when my parents sat me down and told me that Coach had left [club name removed] and took the group with her. We found out through the parent of one of the girls that decided not to go with Coach, who also told my parents that Coach had been fired from the club and wasn’t just “moving on” like she later told us. I got a Facebook message from Coach saying how “devastated” her and the girls were that I wasn’t coming with them, but to stay in touch as she still wanted to be involved with my gymnastics. It was the first message she’d sent me in my whole time off ill. I slowly got better during 2008 and went back to the club for a bit with a different coach, but eventually decided to move to a club closer to my house and my school.

2009 – I was with new coaches and a new club. I’d got back to fitness and surpassed where I’d been before I got sick. In March 2009 we had regional squad training which was being held at [club name removed]. It was meant to just be the regional team there, but Coach was there with her group just training as normal. They were on bars when we arrived, and she told one of the girls to do a skill to show off to the other coaches. 

My coach noticed that I’d had an off reaction when I first saw Coach. She ignored me mostly and just focused on her girls. Later on, we were on beam and she was conditioning her girls by the rope’s & pommel in the corner. I did a bad beam dismount as she was walking past and she said, “what the [expletive] was that”, then “I didn’t teach you [expletive] gymnastics like that”. I sort of laughed while trying to hide the fact that tears were coming into my eyes, then I asked the head coach if I could use the toilet. My coach followed me into the corridor where I proceeded to have a full-on panic attack. My coach calmed me down and reminded me that I’m training for myself – I have nothing to prove to Coach. We talked the whole way home and I felt like some of the weight had lifted a bit. Coach Facebook messaged me to say she hoped she didn’t “upset me” with her comments, that even if something is perfect, she will still find fault and that I’ll always be her gymnast. I didn’t reply, & when I went back through those messages recently that one in particular really made me anxious.

My coach alerted my parents that something might be wrong with the way I was coached under Coach, after seeing my reaction in the gym with her. My parents sat me down and we had a proper conversation about my time with Coach. I didn’t tell them everything or even very many details, but I told them how I felt especially while I was off ill. While I was ill and bed bound, I basically felt as though I was a failure, a waste of space, that darkness was closing in and I’d never escape it. I’d never be good enough to impress Coach, I’d never be strong enough to get up again, being in the darkness and pain was my punishment for not listening to Coach and for being too scared to follow what she was trying to teach me. With the support of the head coach at my new club, we submitted a safeguarding incident report to British Gymnastics in March 2009. I vividly remember sitting round the kitchen table writing it with my parents. In June/July my dad called the safeguarding and welfare officer for our region at British Gymnastics to chase up our report. We were told to report it to our club welfare officer. We explained that we had left the club where the incidents had occurred, and so had the coach. The BG officer said that they would “investigate” but they weren’t sure if they could do anything as it wasn’t reported while I was training with her i.e. I hadn’t reported via official club channels. We didn’t chase any further, and I’m angry with myself for this. 

Years later seeing Coach all over BG’s YouTube channel and to see her running coaching clinics and being promoted made me think that something must have changed. I trusted that systems had been put in place, or similar behaviours couldn’t still be happening because no way would BG promote a coach like that, nor would she be able to get away with it. It’s hard reading reports in the years since and knowing that there have been at least 4 other formal complaints made to BG since my initial report. Coach knows what she has done and doesn’t see anything wrong with it because it “produces results” (a friend and ex-coach told me that she cut ties with Coach after hearing her say “show me a way to produce results without using my methods and I’ll listen” – full awareness and no remorse for her behaviour). It’s hard thinking that I have had and will always have ME (even if I have periods of remission) and respiratory issues because of how hard my body was pushed as a child. It’s hard to remember the two years of my adult life where I was crippled by anxiety and depression, terrified to let anyone in/to trust that someone else wouldn’t just walk away from me because I was too much work. It’s hard to know that although I am no longer crippled by these mental health issues, they will never go away, and it is only through antidepressants and learning how to trust others again and talk about my feelings that I am able to live without fear. It’s hard to see stories almost identical to these come up from gymnasts all over the world, but I hope that by doing so that real change can come about in this sport. I also hope that those who have caused this pain will be held accountable and justice will be served – clean out the mould within the food chain so that the rest doesn’t rot. I hope that this movement brings healing and hope to gymnasts all over the world.

#gymnastalliance

If you have been affected by or witnessed maltreatment in the gymnastics setting you can speak to a trained NSPCC counsellor on 0800 056 0566.

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It’s been 3 weeks since the review was announced. If this was a Parliamentary review, there would be a written call for evidence, an email address or form, which evidence could be submitted to and a deadline for which the evidence needed to be submitted by. This isn’t a difficult process to organise and if the person at the other end is concerned that they will be overwhelmed with the amount of evidence, they can set a word limit. I’ve worked on a review before, where I supported Parliament, because they wanted to hear from people who were affected by the issue in question. I helped organise a focus group which fed into the final report and many of the recommendations from this group were taken forward.

There was also an oral evidence session where key stakeholders were questioned.

I’m still in favour of a separate Parliamentary Inquiry taking place, however the investigation which is happening with British Gymnastics at the moment should certainly consider some of the above approaches, and in doing so should reflect a cross-sector of the sport and the different disciplines, at all levels – including recreational gymnastics, if it is to put in place some robust measures going forward.

I wanted to share my own thoughts seeing as I had the platform to do so.

Should FIG increase the minimum age to 18 for women?

It’s an interesting question, and begs the question as to whether this should be consistent across all sport and not just gymnastics. Tom Daley competed in diving age 14 and Sky Brown (skateboarder) would have only just turned 12 if Tokyo had gone ahead this year. There is something incredibly wrong throwing such young people into the spotlight before they have had a chance to discover who they really are. Similarly, the amount of missed education, due to extra training and crammed competitions in order to prepare someone to peak in their teens is also problematic.

We are seeing an increase in gymnasts competing at the highest level into their mid-20s. Becky Downie will be 29 next year, and has a realistic chance of medalling if selected for the team. It won’t have escaped any gymnastic fans notice that 2005 world champion Chellsie Memmel has finally announced her comeback – aged 32. A lack of overtraining, rest and pacing oneself is clearly the key to longevity and one wonders what more Becky might have achieved had she been listened to earlier in her career.

I don’t think that increasing the age limit solves the problem of gymnasts not being listened to. Becky mentioned in her statement that only a couple of years ago she didn’t have a voice and here she was in her mid-20s. So we must be careful to think that just because someone is 18 that they will be able to speak up for themselves.

What are your thoughts on the elite pathway?

First off, it’s important to say I’ve never been an elite gymnast, just a recreational gymnast and now I compete as an adult. However I recently looked for interest at the various pathways and my understanding is that if you don’t make it through either the Compulsory Grades or National Voluntary Grades, you sort of have a second go through out of age, but otherwise that’s it and you might as well give up as there’s nothing else for you. As this is all set up to align with getting someone ready for Espoir, Junior and then Senior it doesn’t account for the amount of school work a person will have around the exact same age either, or that a person will go through puberty at different times or may have life challenges thrown at them. The point is, people peak at different points in their life and may have a break but want to return to their gymnastics. They may show immense promise and even be capable of developing the skills of an elite gymnast, but if they haven’t done the grades there is no other route for them except starting from the beginning. This feels wrong.

I also think that additional pathways reduces the pressure at an early age which perhaps reduces pressure on the coaches. It doesn’t solve the problem of bullying and abuse, but we know that stress doesn’t help these things.

What are your thoughts on all these comments about weight shaming?

I’m not surprised, but I’m really angry (and don’t get me started on the latest Government anti-obesity campaign…). Every single gym should ensure they have the details for Beat’s Helpline and coaches should have training on eating disorders and how to spot the signs and symptoms as part of training. The training should also explore approaching changes to the body during puberty and how to manage this sensitively. It’s an incredibly vulnerable time and for me was one of the contributory factors to my own battle with an eating disorder. I ended up moving up a class around the same time as I started puberty and went from being the best to feeling like I was the worst. I looked around the class and felt lumpy, sweaty and like I was bigger than everyone else at gymnastics and that was the reason I couldn’t do the moves. I never told anyone and I ended up quitting. My puberty started relatively early for my age. About a year later we did an acrobatics class at school and we were comparing weights to decide who would be the base. I was horrified how heavy I was. I hadn’t thought about BMI at that point or the fact that other people’s weights were lower because they were pre-pubescent. It’s so important that this time is managed well. Of course there are many other factors involved too, eating disorders are very complex, but these were some gymnastics related points which readers may relate to.

I still don’t think the message has got through enough but at least 1.25 million people in the UK suffer with some form of eating disorder, although that’s the tip of the iceberg because many suffer in silence. Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses, 1 in 5 will die. Thankfully I didn’t become one of those 1 in 5 but I came close to it and ended up in hospital. I’m recovered now but it’s taken a lot of treatment to get me to where I am today.

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