As one of America’s top gymnasts in the late 1990s, Jeanette Antolin said abuse was a daily occurrence for her.
Don Peters, the 1984 U.S. Olympic team coach who trained her at the world renowned SCATS gymnastics academy in Huntington Beach, called her a “piece of (expletive),” she said.
Bela Karolyi, the iconic coach of Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton, once grabbed her inappropriately at U.S. national team training camp on the Karolyi’s remote Texas ranch.
“Bela grabbed my butt and told me to lose it,” Antolin said in an interview with the Southern California News Group.
It was in this toxic environment that Antolin, a Marina High grad, and other top U.S. gymnasts went looking for a friend. Antolin thought she found one in U.S. national team physician Larry Nassar.
“I trusted Larry,” she said.
But Nassar, according to Antolin, violated that trust by sexually abusing her for several years. Under the guise of providing medical treatment, Nassar repeatedly inserted his ungloved hand into Antolin’s vagina, sometimes twice a day, the gymnast said.
Nassar’s sexual abuse of America’s top female gymnasts was so widespread that John Manly, Antolin’s attorney, told SCNG there have been victims of Nassar on every U.S. Olympic team from the 1996 gold medal triumph in Atlanta to record-setting victories in London and last summer in Rio de Janeiro.
Manly said members of the 2012 and 2016 U.S. Olympic teams have told the FBI they were abused by Nassar.
Antolin and 2000 Olympic bronze medalist Jamie Dantzscher are suing Nassar and USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body. Antolin has also filed a sexual harassment suit against Peters and SCATS.
Antolin and fellow gymnasts Jamie Dantzscher and Jessica Howard appeared on the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” on Sunday to discuss the way they were treated as members of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team.
“What made me come forward is that I know for myself there is nothing I can do to change my past but there’s a lot I can do to change the future for our kids,” Antolin said. “So at least by stepping forward I can bring light to this situation that’s important to me. To make sure no other kid has to walk in my shoes and go through this.”
Contact the writer: sreid@scng.com
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
