The ranch did have a relationship with a hospital, and eventually some improvements were made. “You had to bring your own training bag.” “There was no water, and you couldn’t store anything,” Seaman says. “If I needed to work on calves or stretch them, it was on the floor.” “If I taped someone I did it on the bleachers,” Seaman says. The gyms lacked even a rudimentary medical facility - even though gymnastics has a well-documented injury rate that is on par with hockey. … They finally got a salad bar, but it was just sparse. “The food was awful, really, really awful,” Seaman confirms. If you performed poorly the reason was invariably that you had eaten too much. “Everything seemed the cheapest, not real food.” Dinner was rice and mushy vegetables and a piece of frozen chicken of uncertain texture, “and everyone felt they were being fully watched” with every bite, Raisman says. “Those things are so bad for you,” she says. “No one helped them,” Seaman says.īreakfast at the ranch cafeteria was powdered eggs, and a spray butter substitute, Raisman recalls. There was no nutritionist, though eating disorders are a long-recognized scourge in the sport. Gymnasts trained for six or seven hours a day on “frozen carrots and peas,” according to Seaman. “I’ve been quiet and haven’t said a word all these years, but I thought, people need to hear it from more than just the kids,” Seaman says. Seaman, who predated Raisman and who the gymnast says she does not know, contacted me after watching young women testify at Nassar’s sentencing in February, when he received 40 to 125 years. Raisman’s account of the monthly camps is bolstered by that of a former athletic trainer, Melanie Seaman, who worked with the national team from 1993 to 2006, and is currently with the Tulsa Ballet. The USOC and USA Gymnastics severed ties with the Karolyi Ranch in January. “Now that I’m away from the sport it makes me so angry that we were that afraid to ask for soap.” “Nobody wanted to be the one who was difficult,” Raisman says. coaches and officials made them believe the noncompliant or those who complained would be left off the team, Raisman says. When they ran out, they were terrified to ask for more because U.S. “After you showered you were like, I almost feel dirtier than before.” Training camps are supposed to be spartan - even unpleasant - but Raisman said they weren’t even provided with bottled water, and those bathrooms lacked soap. Yet at the monthly Karolyi camps, “The shower smelled like eggs, and we would bring sandals to wear because it was so disgusting,” says Raisman. The gymnasts were the very faces of the Summer Olympics, who brought home individual all-around gold medals in four straight Summer Games and team golds in 20. Raisman, now 23, is suing the USOC and USA Gymnastics over that disconnect, alleging the organizations “willfully” refused to “implement appropriate safeguards” at the ranch and in other settings that left her and her teammates vulnerable to the sex crimes of USA Gymnastics’ head trainer and medical director Larry Nassar. Olympic Committee head Scott Blackmun called it “an excellent model for the Olympic movement.” But for the gymnasts it was a shabby, penny-pinching place, Raisman says, of dorm rooms jammed with old bunk beds covered with stained blankets, and sometimes, crawling with bugs. Olympic authorities couldn’t be bothered to care about the dirty showers and the lousy diet at the Karolyi Ranch, no wonder they didn’t catch the sexual molester who preyed on her and her gold medal gymnastics teammates for years.įrom 2001 to 2017 Bela and Marta Karolyi’s Texas ranch was the designated National Team Training Center for gymnastics, an engine that generated gold medals and million-dollar salaries for officials like former USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny. “It didn’t sit well in your stomach, something wasn’t right,” she says. The showers were moldy, she says, and the food was so repulsive that it seemed calculated to give them eating disorders. To Aly Raisman, there is culpability in the crummy little details. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu
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