Raisman: « Why are we looking at why didn’t the girls speak up? »
Aly Raisman, a six-time Olympic medalist and captain of the gold medal-winning 2012 and 2016 US women’s gymnastics teams, has said in a new interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes that Larry Nassar, the disgraced former US women’s national gymnastics team doctor, sexually abused her.
“Why are we looking at why didn’t the girls speak up?” Raisman says in a clip from the interview, which is slated to air in full on November 12, as she explains that people have asked her why she didn’t say something when the abuse was happening. “Why not look at what about the culture? What did USA Gymnastics do, and Larry Nassar do, to manipulate these girls so much that they are so afraid to speak up?”
Raisman, who is now 23 years old, was first treated by Nassar when she was 15. Her account of her experiences with Nassar is similar to that of her 2012 teammate McKayla Maroney, who came forward in October and said that Nassar drugged and abused her on multiple occasions, starting when she was 13.
Nassar pleaded guilty in July to federal child pornography charges stemming from a 2016 investigation into the sexual abuse of patients, but did not plead guilty to assault and abuse. According to CBS News, more than 130 women, including former athletes who were treated by Nassar, have filed civil suits alleging that Nassar abused them.
“I am angry,” Raisman said, noting that she met with FBI investigators to discuss her encounters with Nassar after the Olympics in Rio. (Per CBS, Raisman also talks about Nassar in her upcoming book, Fierce, which comes out November 14.)
She continued: “When I see these young girls that come up to me, and they ask for pictures or autographs, whatever it is, I just — I can’t — every time I look at them, every time I see them smiling, I just think… I just want to create change so that they never, ever have to go through this.”
