Four-time Olympic gymnastics champion Simone Biles admitted that she was a victim of harassment by former US team doctor Larry Nassar.

54-year-old USA gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar has already been sentenced to 60 years in prison in a child pornography case and is awaiting trial on charges of enticement of minors and harassment. About 140 women and girls whom the pedophile physical therapist worked with from 1986 to 2016 at the Michigan national team and gymnastics club said they were victims of molestation or sexual assault under the guise of medical care. Now this list has been supplemented by the most titled of the victims.

IT IS NOT MY FAULT

Most people know me as a happy, funny and energetic girl. But lately I've been feeling broken, and the more I tried to drown out the voice in my head, the louder it became. I'm no longer afraid to tell my story. I am one of the many girls who was sexually abused by Larry Nassar. Please believe me that it was difficult to say these words out loud before. There are many reasons why I didn't want to share my story, but now I know it's not my fault,” Biles tweeted.

Biles has been a major star in women's gymnastics since 2013. She is a ten-time world champion, and at the Rio Olympics she won five medals, including four gold. Simone was the flag bearer for Team USA at the closing ceremony of the 2016 Games. Soon after, she found herself at the center of a therapeutic exclusion scandal. After hackers hacked the WADA database, it turned out that the 20-year-old gymnast suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and has been taking psychostimulants since childhood, which may help her cope with starting anxiety.

DOCTOR EVIL

Larry Nassar is gradually turning into one of the most terrible maniacs in the history of sports in America. He has been in prison for a year, and it is already clear that he will spend the rest of his days there. Michigan does not have the death penalty, so the punishment will not be harsher. The evil doctor was taken into custody after police found more than 37 thousand pictures and videos of child porn in his home. For this, the doctor has already received a 60-year sentence, but most importantly, he will have to answer to more than a hundred charges of indecent acts against gymnasts. It seems that Nassar never missed a single chance to harass girls under the guise of treatment or medical examination. And it’s simply amazing that he managed to hide his “exploits” for 20 years.

Sex crimes case in American gymnastics began two years ago when an Indiana coach was arrested on charges of child molestation and child pornography. Marvin Sharp, who trained the 2008 Olympic medalists Samantha Peshek And Bridget Sloan. Unable to bear the shame, Sharpe committed suicide in prison, but the media continued to delve into this problem and in the summer of 2016 they came to Nassar. Gymnasts Jessica Howard, Jeanette Antolin and Olympic medalist 2000 Jamie Dantzscher the doctor was accused of using his official position to molest minors.

After this, accusations against Nassar fell one after another, and some of the confessions were made by famous athletes in in social networks- as part of the #MeToo campaign, which arose in the wake of the scandal surrounding film producer Harvey Weinstein. Among others, three-time Olympic champions and real gymnastics superstars declared themselves victims of a pedophile doctor. Gabi Douglas and, as well as the winner of the 2012 Games in the team tournament McKayla Maroney and world champion Maggie Nichols. Now Simone Biles has joined them.

IOC SILENCE

At the very beginning of the scandal - in March last year - the president of the USA Gymnastics Federation Steve Penny, who had held his post since 1999, resigned on the recommendation of the National Olympic Committee. However, now the gymnasts involved in the “Nassar case” are insisting on new dismissals. It turned out that federation officials paid compensation to the affected girls for keeping silent about the harassment. So McKayla Maroney received $1.25 million for this. Over the past year, the International Gymnastics Federation and the International Olympic Committee have not expressed their position on the actions of their American colleagues.

Meanwhile, the girls' stories about Nassar's actions are literally shocking. For example, Maroney wrote on social networks that Nassar molested her from the age of 13, imposing medical procedures during which he performed indecent acts. One day, a concerned doctor gave the young athlete sleeping pills, after which he allegedly dragged her into bed against her will. Maroney and other victims claim that they were previously afraid to report the doctor's antics out of a sense of shame and fear of losing their place in the gymnastics club and on the national team. Most likely, in the near future, with the beginning of the process in America, we will hear new stories and learn new names.

Meanwhile, in Canada, the former head coach of the Canadian artistic gymnastics team was arrested on charges of violence and sexual exploitation. Dave Brubaker. Hearings in his case will be held in February.

Artistic gymnast Simone Biles is an Olympic champion and has become a world champion many times. She performs the most difficult, often dangerous elements, and leaves her competitors far behind.

Childhood

Simone Biles was born on March 14, 1997 in Ohio, in the small town of Columbus, USA. She has two citizenships - American and Belize (the homeland of the girl’s mother). The girl grew up in large family. Besides her there were seven more children. Mom, an alcoholic and drug addicted woman, could not fully take care of her family and soon all the children ended up in a shelter.

Simone, along with one sister Adria, was taken under the care of her grandparents. There is information that grandparents adopted their granddaughters. And the girls call them their parents. Adria, like Simone, also does gymnastics.

The girl grabbed onto sports like a straw to save herself from vegetating in her family. Since the age of 6, the girl has been involved in gymnastics. And if it weren’t for sports, it’s not known how little Simone’s life would have turned out.

On the way to success

Aimee Boorman, Simone's first and only coach, proudly says that it literally takes Biles a few days to learn a new technique. While for other athletes this may take more than one year.

But victories for the girl and her patient coach were not easy and did not come immediately. At the beginning of her sports career, Simone and her coach struggled with the girl’s nerves. Failures, removal from competitions - this was the first result of this struggle. Grandfather and grandmother found a special psychologist for their granddaughter, who helped the girl achieve her first successes. Simone Biles learned to control her emotional state in gymnastics. Thanks to this, the girl receives medals one after another. And she achieves victory not only in gymnastics, but also in mental balance.

Thanks to the hacker group Fancy Bear, the public learned that the athlete passed a test for the psychostimulant Methylphenidate. And, of course, there was a positive result. But despite all this, no anti-doping rules were violated. According to Simone's medical history, she has permission to take this drug. The athlete is learning to cope with her nerves; she takes these medications as prescribed by doctors. Although in big sports, medical approval is often a trick to justify doping.

Olympic champion

This little 20-year-old girl, 145 cm tall and weighing 47 kg, is the first black American woman in the history of sports to become the world champion in gymnastics in the absolute championship (1994). Before her, this title was held by Shanon Miller (from 1993 to 1994). In 2013, she made her debut in the adult category and she became the champion in the absolute championship. In the following 2014 and 2015, it again confirms its championship.

In 2016, Simone Biles became an Olympic champion and ten-time world champion. She achieves unprecedented heights in five events: individual all-around competition, team competition, floor exercise, vault and balance beam. That same year, Biles won five medals at Olympic Games in Rio. Five out of six. After such a triumph, she was solemnly entrusted with carrying the flag at the closing ceremony of the games.

Simone Blythe has been compared to Nadia Comaneci, a 14-year-old gymnast from Romania. This athlete was the first to receive ten points. At that time, this was the highest score according to the system that was then used in artistic gymnastics. Time magazine in August 1976 placed Nadia's photograph on its first cover. And forty years later, the same magazine publishes an issue with Simone Biles. And also on the first one.

Biles is a short girl who endlessly surprises everyone with her capabilities. For example: a combination of elements - two and a half turns in the air. It was first performed by Simone in 2013. Before this, none of the gymnasts risked doing this. The jump was named after Biles, in her honor. According to the coach, the girl has some special sense of space and time that allows her to do incredible things. Biles' competitors simply don't have a chance. If only because Simone starts performing combinations with a very short run-up. Because of this, she has more time and space to perform additional elements. Simone Biles' competitors don't take such risks in their performances.

When Simone Biles first appeared in competition, no one took her seriously. But she immediately showed fighting qualities and won, won, won... Now even her ill-wishers respect her. After all, the girl managed to prove to everyone that it’s not a matter of height at all. And skin color has nothing to do with it either. The main thing is talent and work. Simone Biles considers it a great honor to compete for the United States and hopes to become the pride of the United States.

Simona happily spends her free time with her pets - dogs. She also enjoys swimming. And the smile never leaves her face.

The entrance to the stands of the Olympic Arena is blocked by large black curtains made of thin cloth, behind which a view opens onto the most beautiful structure of this Olympics - red chairs and a green floor, where beige sports equipment rises. Volunteers fill special containers with magnesium carbonate and check that the rings are holding tightly. In this stadium with the most ordinary stands, only the arena is crowded. On Sunday you could see the preparations for what is happening here today. Simone Biles, the woman who revolutionized gymnastics and may soon be recognized as the best gymnast of all time, is trying to achieve an unprecedented feat: becoming the first athlete to win five gold medals in one of the three most popular disciplines included in the Olympic program. games.

So far, no one has been able to receive so many gold medals at once: neither Nadia Comaneci (three gold, one silver and one bronze at the Olympics in Montreal in 1976), nor Larisa Latynina (four gold, one silver and one bronze at the Olympics in Melbourne in 1956 ). “This is an amazing gymnast. I recently saw her perform on TV and froze with my mouth open. What she does is something no one else can do,” says 2002 world champion Elena Gomez, a floor exercise gold medalist who now runs her own gym and works at a technical development center in Mallorca. Many analysts consider Biles the best gymnast of all time. The ten-time world champion (she has 14 medals in total, and won three absolute championships in a row for the first time in history) is a unique athlete, but for a sport like artistic gymnastics, the results obtained at the Olympic Games are of paramount importance. So what Biles does here between now and August 19th will determine whether her name ends up on the list of legends.

Today, without any doubt, she will take gold in the team all-around (gymnasts from the USA are 10 points ahead of athletes from China and Russia). The day after tomorrow there will be competitions in the absolute championship. On Sunday she will have the opportunity to show her skills on the vault, and on Monday on the beam (the most problematic apparatus for her). On Tuesday, she is likely to take the lead in the floor exercise, demonstrating her “biles” (two and a half turns in the air), which no one has yet managed, while the American gymnast first performed this element in 2013.

Simone Biles was born in Columbus, Ohio in March 1997. Gymnastics saved a girl whose mother suffered from alcoholism and who had seven brothers and sisters from an unenviable fate. That's why maybe she's always smiling. When you imagine a possible ending that was avoided, you can smile. That is life. Simone, along with one of her sisters, was raised by her maternal grandparents, and her talent was discovered by Aimee Boorman, who remains now Biles' coach, who ordered her removed from competition in 2013, a few months before her first World Championships, because The athletes lost their nerve. Since then, she has been seeing a psychologist weekly.

Context

No need to compete with the USA

US gymnasts win gold

Rio: fights between Russia and the USA

Japanese gymnasts win gold

Real Power

Just look at the photographs. Biles is 1.45 cm tall and weighs 47 kg. Nadia Comaneci, who until today was considered a legend in artistic gymnastics, was 1.62 cm tall and weighed 45 kg. At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the Romanian may have been shorter than 1.62 cm (1.55 cm and 40 kg, according to ESPN), meaning she was taller than the American athlete, but weighed less. “They are of different types. Nadya had long and thin muscles, and Simon was pure power. In general, gymnasts today are stronger, but the reasons for this are different,” says Lucia Guisado.

Guisado agrees with the opinion of the coach of the Spanish men's artistic gymnastics team, Fernando Ciscar, who was upset by the unsuccessful performance of Raya Zapata on the first day. “Due to changes in scoring rules, we now have to perform more difficult elements that require more physical preparation,” she explains. After the 2004 Olympics in Athens, they began to evaluate the complexity of elements: the more complex the execution, the higher the score can be, and technique comes into the background. “Therefore, gymnasts are forced to significantly complicate their performances, and the other day a French gymnast received a serious injury. And all this is due to the fact that gymnasts perform at the limit of their strength, and, of course, sometimes...,” adds Elena Gomez, a well-known representative of Spanish artistic gymnastics, in the history of which athletes have won four olympic medals(three by Gervasio Deferr and one by Patricia Moreno).

Only a bee once made Biles step off her pedestal. This funny incident happened at the medal ceremony at the 2014 World Championships. Leaving this anecdotal story aside, there is another factor in Biles' success, perhaps the most compelling. We are talking about the famous Karolyi Ranch, the cradle of American gymnastics since 1983, a former farm converted into a high-performance gymnast training center in the middle of the desert that is Texas. Karolyi is a legendary surname in the sports discipline, the leaders of which in the 20th century were the USSR and other countries of Eastern Europe. Now they have been replaced by Americans with muscles consisting of short fibers that set the tone. Nadia Comaneci in 1976 and Simone Biles 40 years later are trained by Bela Karolyi, thanks to whom Nadia received the highest score (10.0) at the Montreal Olympics. According to rumors, he has now transferred all matters to his wife and coordinator of the US women's national team. According to a number of American media reports, 73-year-old Bela walks around the farm and cares for the animals. But it’s hard to imagine that, having such a miracle as Biles among his students, he does not take part in the preparation of perhaps the best gymnast in history.

It was Károlyi who introduced revolutionary changes to gymnastics in the 70s based on the laws of biomechanics. He spent many mornings studying the strength a gymnast developed to improve her jumping technique. He intuitively felt that muscle, combined with light weight, was a necessary condition. This is what sets Biles apart: muscle combined with light weight. But, according to the head coach of the Spanish women's team, not everything is so simple: “The elements performed have changed. The form of training has changed. The floor has become more elastic, springs are built into it, which facilitates higher jumps. Now there are gymnasts different types: slim, small, strong, muscular, skinny... Training, training and training.” So maybe Simone Biles is the only one who trains and trains and trains?