The U.S. Olympic Committee has issued a complaint against USA Gymnastics. They are now initiating the first steps necessary to remove the organization’s recognition as a national body.
“This is a situation in which there are no perfect solutions,” USOC CEO Sarah Hirshland said in a statement released Monday. “Seeking to revoke recognition is not a conclusion that we have come to easily.”
Hirshland wrote in an open letter to USAG that the USOC believes “the challenges facing [USAG] are simply more than it is capable overcoming in its current form.”
“We have worked closely with the new USAG board over recent months to support them, but despite diligent effort, the NGB continues to struggle,” the letter reads. “And that’s not fair to gymnasts around the country.”
“Even weeks ago, I hoped there was a different way forward. But we now believe that is no longer possible.”
The USAG has been a focal point of controversy for months because hundreds of women came forward to allege that former team doctor Larry Nassar sexually abused them during medical examinations.
Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison when he pled guilty to criminal sexual misconduct earlier this year.
He was also sentenced to 60 years after pleading guilty to child pornography charges. And he was further charged in June with sexually assaulting minors in Walker County Texas.
The former President and CEO of USAG, Steve Penny, was arrested on charges that he tampered with evidence in the Nassar investigation.
Penny is accused of ordering the removal of documents related to Nassar’s conduct after learning that authorities were investigating a training center in Texas.
Penny stepped down from his position at USAG last year and in June declined to testify at a Senate subcommittee hearing about the sexual abuse of young Olympic athletes. He invoked the Fifth Amendment.
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