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Former USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar was sentenced to decades in prison in 2017. Promises were made that would keep serial predators and abusers like Nassar from ever working in the sport again. That, according to several former gymnasts, hasn’t happened.
With the 2024 Summer Olympics set to begin on Friday in Paris, France, a new report by the Washington Post accuses Artur Akopyan, a USA Gymnastics-approved coach, of numerous disturbing allegations.
Sydney Freidin (pictured above) was coached by Akopyan. He also was the personal gymnastics coach of gold medalist McKayla Maroney.
Freidin and another former gymnast claim in the Post report that Akopyan once flung “a young girl into the air in rage after she made a mistake during an aerial cartwheel.”
Freidin also claims that when he would get angry at her Akopyan would “grab her and throw her to the ground so hard that his gloved hands left marks and even bruises.”
None of that type of behavior seems to have been worthy of a suspension, let alone a reprimand, by the governing bodies tasked with keeping gymnastics safer that it was when Larry Nassar was involved.
Nearly 300 other coaches affiliated with USA Gymnastics have been banned or are suspended for misconduct, according to SafeSport’s database. But most are ineligible because of criminal convictions, not SafeSport’s own investigations. Among the gymnastics coaches SafeSport investigated itself, none were banned solely because of physical or emotional abuse, and only one is suspended.
USA Gymnastics, meanwhile, has chosen not to put restrictions on top coaches under investigation by SafeSport, even when they are accused of serious misconduct. In the instances when the governing body has investigated club coaches itself, without SafeSport, it suspended some coaches after investigations, but it has also faced criticism for lax punishments — including in 2020, when USA Gymnastics allowed the reinstatement of several prominent coaches in California whom it had reportedly found to have committed physical abuse.
For their report, the Post says it interviewed dozens of gymnasts who competed for coaches publicly accused of physical and emotional abuse after Larry Nassar. They also spoke to attorneys, parents, gymnastics officials and advocates.
Ten former gymnasts claimed Artur Akopyan physically abused them or their teammates when they were girls. They claim he was emotionally abusive, degraded them, and mocked their injuries. Their stories echo that told by Sydney Freidin. One former gymnast, Desiree Palomares, claims Akopyan slapped her across the face when she was around 11-years-old. Another gymnast says she witnesses it happen.
Galina Marinova, another coach and the co-owner of Akopyan’s gym, is accused of being emotionally abusive and body-shaming gymnasts.
The Post reports that “both coaches have continued to work without restrictions.”
USA Gymnastics told the Post it could not discuss individual cases.
“It makes no sense to me at all that they still have a gym,” said Talitha Jones, who trained with Akopyan and Marinova before competing at the University of California at Berkeley.
McKayla Maroney brought up both Akopyan and Marinova when she retired in 2016.
“Artur changed my gymnastics, and I’m so forever grateful for that,” she said. “But mentally, they just messed me up. Like, so badly. And I love them with all my heart, but to speak my truth would to just be like — to really say that it did affect me. And, again, there’s a better way of doing things.”