SafeSport reopens gymnastics probe after more abuse claims

The U.S. Center for SafeSport has reopened an investigation into two top Southern California gymnastics coaches after former gymnasts told The Washington Post the coaches had been physically and emotionally abusive to them as young girls.

The center, an independent watchdog created by Congress in the wake of revelations of sexual abuse by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, shelved its investigation of coaches Artur Akopyan and Galina Marinova in 2022, citing a lack of witnesses.

But 10 former gymnasts told The Post that Akopyan abused them or their teammates when they were girls, including allegations that he threw, dragged or slapped them. One gymnast said she was never contacted by SafeSport even though a fellow athlete had given her name to investigators.

The decision to reopen the investigation followed criticism by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who in a letter to SafeSport cited The Post’s reporting and expressed concern that the center “has been slow to investigate allegations of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, allowing child athletes to remain in the care of their alleged abusers.”

Akopyan and Marinova, whose star pupils have included Olympic gold medal winner McKayla Maroney, still operate a bustling gym in Calabasas, Calif. Police also investigated Akopyan in 2010 over allegations that he had dragged a young girl by her neck and arm, bruising her, The Post reported, but no action was taken against him after a city hearing.

SafeSport recently contacted two gymnasts named in The Post’s article and informed them that it was reopening the investigation, emails reviewed by The Post show.

Sydney Freidin, the former gymnast who initially complained to SafeSport about Akopyan and Marinova in 2020, said she planned to cooperate with the investigation but was keeping her expectations “pretty low.” She criticized both SafeSport and Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics, the sport’s national governing body, for what she described as an apathetic response to her and other gymnasts’ allegations—until they resulted in bad publicity.

“It’s not for a lack of ability, it’s just a lack of care,” Freidin said. “And the only time they care … is when it affects how they look.”

SafeSport said in a statement that it “reopens investigations when new information” or claimants emerge, “which can happen as a result of media coverage.”

“We are grateful for the participation of Claimants in our process because it increases our ability to fairly and thoroughly investigate matters,” the statement read. “We know it can be challenging, and we are working every day to improve communication, efficiency, and trauma-sensitivity.”

A spokeswoman for USA Gymnastics told The Post that they could not comment on SafeSport investigations.

Akopyan and Marinova did not respond to a message seeking comment on the reopened investigation. They have previously denied all allegations of abuse.

The Post investigation found that Akopyan and Marinova were among several high-profile gymnastics coaches who remained in the sport despite being accused of physical or emotional abuse in the years after the Nassar scandal. Despite investigating at least six coaches of recent U.S. Olympians or alternates accused of abuse after Nassar, The Post found, SafeSport has not sanctioned any of them, and most of those investigations remain open.

At Nassar’s sentencing hearing, victims said the sport’s toxic culture—and specifically their coaches’ physical and emotional abuse—had enabled Nassar’s misconduct to continue for years. Mattie Larson, an elite gymnast who competed for Marinova and Akopyan since childhood, testified that she was too afraid of Akopyan and Marinova to tell them what Nassar was doing to her.

Freidin told The Post that when he was angry, Akopyan would frequently grab her and throw her to the ground when he was supposed to be spotting her on the uneven bars. Once, she said, she had witnessed him throwing a young gymnast into the air after she made a mistake during an aerial flip.

She provided a SafeSport investigator with a list of witnesses to corroborate and add to her allegations, emails show. But in 2022, SafeSport “administratively closed” the investigation, telling her that it didn’t find enough evidence to move forward but that the case could still be reopened.

Among the potential witnesses Freidin shared with SafeSport was Abigail DeShazo. That former gymnast later told The Post that she had also seen Akopyan violently throw the young athlete during an aerial flip. But DeShazo said that she was never contacted by SafeSport.

“I definitely was expecting to be reached out to by someone at some point, and like was waiting on it,” DeShazo said.

Grassley’s office sent letters to the chief executives of SafeSport and USA Gymnastics last month, demanding answers about languishing cases identified by The Post, and about why the organizations seem reluctant to place restrictions on accused coaches during pending investigations.

Grassley also criticized SafeSport’s handling of allegations of abuse levied against former professional women’s soccer coach Rory Dames. SafeSport opened an investigation into Dames in 2021, after former players told The Washington Post that he was emotionally abusive to them. A subsequent Post investigation found allegations of sexual misconduct against Dames dating back decades, including a 1995 police investigation allegations he had sexually harassed and inappropriately touched minors and a former youth player who told The Post that Dames “groomed” her as a minor and had sex with her once she turned 18. (Dames’s attorney did not respond to a message seeking comment but has previously denied the allegations against the coach.)

But after the United States Soccer Federation, the sport’s national governing body, suspended Dames’s coaching license in response to the allegations, SafeSport stepped in to “water down” the temporary suspension, Grassley wrote. SafeSport has allowed Dames to coach under supervision and other constraints.

The Dames case, Grassley suggested, was an example of how “alleged abusers continue to have unfettered access to child and adult athletes as cases toil through [SafeSport’s] administrative processes.”

“Given the apparent fact that young athletes remain in potential danger because of your decisions,” Grassley asked of SafeSport CEO Ju’Riese Colón, “why should you remain in your position at SafeSport?”

In a letter she sent to Grassley in response, Colón defended SafeSport’s commitment to putting “athlete wellbeing above money and medals.” Colón did not respond directly to Grassley’s request that SafeSport provide figures on how often the organization has relaxed protective measures, as it did in Dames’s case, instead only writing that SafeSport “rarely” did so. (A SafeSport spokesperson told The Post that the center doesn’t yet track such instances, though it is “improving” its data collection.)

SafeSport bars governing bodies such as USA Gymnastics from conducting their own investigations in cases it takes jurisdiction over. But it has recently emphasized that governing bodies can take independent action against coaches by “safety plans” that limit contact with athletes during investigations. USA Gymnastics has not put safety plans in place for any of the prominent coaches probed by SafeSport, including Akopyan and Marinova, and did not do so following The Post’s investigation.

In her own response to Grassley, USA Gymnastics President and CEO Li Li Leung said that in practice, it is virtually impossible for governing bodies to take action themselves because SafeSport “lacks transparency” and “refuses” to share information gathered during investigations, leaving governing bodies in the dark.

Leung said USA Gymnastics and other governing bodies are “too often left to hope that [SafeSport] will take swift action to protect athletes.”

But SafeSport has said that it must be judicious with what information it releases to governing bodies out of concern for the confidentiality of its claimants, and the possibility of retaliation. In a statement to The Post, Colón referred to USA Gymnastics’ role in the Nassar scandal.

“The mishandling of abuse allegations by USA Gymnastics is the very reason the U.S. Center for SafeSport exists,” Colón said. “While progress has been made, they don’t have the independence, expertise, nor have they earned the trust to investigate matters of sexual misconduct.”

Freidin said that the nearly two years she invested in SafeSport’s initial stalled investigation of Akopyan worsened her trauma and exacerbated health issues, including an eating disorder.

There are already indications that SafeSport does not plan on moving much more quickly this time. Freidin and DeShazo have not yet been contacted by an actual investigator at SafeSport, they said. A SafeSport coordinator informed DeShazo in an email only that that step would occur “as soon as practicable.”

But Freidin said that she felt obligated to aid SafeSport again for her own closure and in an effort to prevent Akopyan and Marinova from continuing to be able to coach young gymnasts.

If the reopened investigation also ends in disappointment, Freidin said, “I don’t think it can really hurt worse than the first time it happen.”