U.S. Congress Presses Sport Leaders on Abuse Crisis

(ATR) U.S. Olympic sport officials say they fell short in protecting athletes when pressed by lawmakers to defend actions taken in the fight against sexual abuse in Olympic sport.

Representatives from the United States Olympic Committee, four national governing bodies that have faced sex abuse scandals, and the U.S. Center for Safe Sport were questioned in a Congressional hearing on Wednesday.

The hearing lasted nearly three hours and grew tense at times as lawmakers perceived a lack of urgency by sport officials in solving the issue of preventing and reporting sexual abuse.

USOC acting president Susanne Lyons, U.S. Center for Safe Sport chief executive Shellie Pfohl, USA Gymnastics president Kerry Perry, USA Swimming president Tim Hinchey, USA Taekwondo executive director Steve McNally, and USA Volleyball chief executive Jamie Davis testified before the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee.

The hearing presented the first ever public opportunity for Perry to answer questions about changes undergone in USA Gymnastics since the fallout from the Larry Nassar scandal. After the hearing Perry did not take questions from the media, with a spokesperson directing reporters to look for a statement from USA Gymnastics.

The U.S. Olympic movement has been rocked by sexual abuse scandals across multiple sports. In addition to the Nassar scandal in gymnastics, swimming, taekwondo, and volleyball have been hit with lawsuits alleging that National Governing Bodies failed to address complaints of sexual abuse and misconduct.

Subcommittee chairman Greg Harper said that ongoing abuse scandals show a "systemic failure" in a system that should be designed to protect athletes. He said it will take a "Herculean effort to regain the trust" in the system as a result of the current scandals.

Lack of Consistency and Funding

Lawmakers pressed the witnesses on the lack of consistent standards that allow NGBs to report issues of sexual abuse as misconduct, as well as a lack of publicly available data from the USOC and the NGBs.

In her questioning Lyons admitted that the USOC still does not have a public, centralized database of found offenders, although that was on a "to-do list" to change. She also admitted that the USOC has used its authority to pressure NGBs to meet certain standards in the past, but not on a consistent basis. Only 12 of 49 NGBs have published banned coaches lists.

Lyons said that the 2017 SafeSport Authorization Act "gave [the USOC] much more authority than we had in the past" in dealing with issues of athlete exploitation.

In the past the USOC acted by giving NGBs "much more autonomy" in dealing with their own issues without a central authority, Lyons said. Since an audit on SafeSport practices of all NGBs last year, the USOC says it is undergoing a governance review to address a way to deal with the patchwork of standards.

Representative Morgan Griffin from Virginia pressed Lyons on why it took seven years for the Center for SafeSport to open after the USOC began working groups on athlete abuse in 2010. Lyons admitted it "did take too long" for the center to open, as it was pushed back by lack of funding and insurance issues, among other thngs.

Pfohl addressed questions from representatives about how the center conducts its operations, as well as the scale in which it operates. A consistent theme throughout questioning was the limited funding offered to the center from the federal government and the USOC. Recently, the USOC said it doubled its contribution to the center to $3.1 million, and Pfohl mentioned the center is looking at additional streams of funding starting in 2019.

Currently the Center for SafeSport has received reports of abuse from 38 of the 49 NGBs during its 14 months of operation. The number of reports has exploded in recent months with Pfohl saying the center last year was "getting 20 to 30 reports per month, [and] this year we are getting 20 to 30 reports per week".

The center received 488 reports of abuse in 2017, and Pfohl expects the total number for 2018 to be "more than double" that.

Still, questions remain about the independence of the center, especially in its funding and board makeup. Lawmakers encouraged Pfohl to come back with a budgetary figure that would allow the center to operate at a sufficient level. Much to the dismay of activists in the audience, the subcommittee failed to ask questions about if having former USA Swimming board of director Megan Ryther on the center’s board was a conflict of interest.

Tense Exchanges

Multiple times during the hearing subcommiittee members became exasperated with a lack of answers from officials due to their recent hirings in the organization.

Representative Michael Burgess pressed Perry and Lyons on how Nassar could operate at the Karolyi Ranch in Texas even though he was not a licensed physician in the state. Perry, as she would throughout the hearing, said that she looked forward to the findings from the independent investigation into USA Gymnastics and the USOC to see who knew what about the Nassar scandal and when.

In a particularly tense exchange, Representative Buddy Carter yelled at Perry for her inability to answer his questions. He demanded Lyons resign her position with the USOC over a 2014 email, reported by the Washington Post, in which she is made aware of sexual assault issues in USA Taekwondo. The paper reports she said the issue is "no longer in our purview".

"I sat here throughout this whole hearing and there is one thing I haven’t heard from any of you. That is ‘I’m sorry,’" Carter said to the panel of witnesses.

Ranking members of the subcommittee immediately intervened to admonish Carter’s outburst and say that sport leaders had in fact apologized in testimony, and offered Lyons a chance to give context to the email. Carter eventually left the hearing before its conclusion after his questioning was cut short.

Representative Debbie Dingell from Michigan gave an emotional line of questioning where she said she was "not reassured by your testimony because I don’t hear a sense of urgency" and saying the sport officials needed to "walk your talk".

"What is out there, who are these young people that need help that aren’t getting any," Dingell questioned. "Why should I take confidence from what you are saying today when you look at this timeline?"

More To Be Done

Olympic athletes, coaches, and activists were in attendance for the hearing, and many came away expecting more from sport leaders and lawmakers.

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an Olympic champion and now head of the sports-advocacy group Champion Women, said after the hearing she hoped the hearing would spur needed changes to the Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act. She said that changing the law, holding leaders accountable for not reporting abuse, and independently empowering athletes is the only way forward to solve the current crisis.

"You have to give [athletes] power," Hogshead-Makar said to Around the Rings. "If the athlete has no power they are not going to speak up no matter how nice [a sport leaders] is."

Ranking subcommittee member Diana Degette ended the hearing suggesting that the panel hold another hearing in six months to address whether the concerns raised today were adequately addressed.

"I think everyone agrees this is a terrible tragedy that happened and we can’t let it linger along," Degette said. "We need to make sure that we have adequate funding so the Center for SafeSport can do its job, and as of today I have concerns to whether they have that funding."

Written and reported by Aaron Bauer in Washington, D.C.

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