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McKayla Maroney Told People About Nassar in 2011

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From ELLE

In an interview with NBC Dateline, Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney said she tried to tell her USA Gymnastics coach and teammates about being abused by Larry Nassar in 2011.

Maroney is one of more than 265 women who accused Nassar of sexual assault during what should've been routine medical procedures. Nassar, a former Olympic doctor, was sentenced to 175 years in prison in January, after more than 100 of his survivors delivered chilling testimony detailing his abuse in court.

Maroney was among those who read statements in court.

'I had a dream to go [to the] Olympics and things I had to do to get there are disgusting,' she said, according to MLive. 'He was not a doctor. He was a child molester. He left scars on my psyche that will never go away.'

Maroney's statement in January came just days after news broke that she could potentially be fined $100,000 (£71,765) for breaking an alleged NDA surrounded the case. USA Gymnastics later confirmed they wouldn't seek money from Maroney. She's now speaking out again about her experience with USA Gymnastics, and the abuse that started with her first visit to Nassar.

'[It] was very, very hard for me not to acknowledge the fact that... this was not treatment, I was being abused,' she told Dateline. 'I was bawling, naked on a bed, him on top of me, like fingering me.'

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Maroney said Nassar made her believe this was part of the difficult process required to reach the Olympics, and that others simply wouldn't understand.

'I remember waking up the next day and wanting to tell someone, and hoping that someone would see it in my eyes that something really bad just happened to me, that they would ask me,' she said.

Maroney tried to tell a few teammates and her coach, John Geddart, in a car ride back to their Tokyo hotel from the training facility. Geddart was suspended by USA Gymnastics earlier this year, after gymnasts accused him of physical and verbal abuse. USA Gymnastics told Dateline the organization had no knowledge of the conversation Maroney said she had in the car in 2011.

After the first incidence of abuse in 2011, Maroney said she contined to be abused by Nassar every time she visited him, which she estimates is hundreds of times. The full interview airs on Dateline on April 29.


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