“Systemic Failure”: Top Gymnasts Blast FBI for Bungling Sexual Abuse Probe of Dr. Larry Nassar

This week some of gymnastics’ biggest stars shared scathing testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the FBI’s failure to stop Larry Nassar, the USA Gymnastics doctor and serial sexual abuser.

Lawyers say that after the FBI was first told of Nassar’s crimes, he abused another 120 people before his 2016 arrest. We feature the testimony of Simone Biles, the four-time Olympic gold medalist, who is widely considered to be the greatest gymnast of all time, and speak with gymnast Rachael Denhollander, who was the first to publicly accuse Nassar of sexual abuse and says the case exposes a systemic failure to take sexual abuse seriously.

“Something we need to be asking as we’re watching this unfold is: What are we not seeing?” Denhollander says.

“What happens to the survivors who don’t have an army of 500 women? What happens to the survivors who don’t have Olympians headlining their case and raising the profile of the gross negligence and corruption that’s taking place in our system?”

DN also speaks with Mark Alesia, who was an investigative reporter at The Indianapolis Star in 2016 and helped to break the story about Nassar’s sexual abuse of gymnasts. “The FBI did not take the gymnasts’ complaints seriously,” Alesia says.

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