Former athletes from the Australian Institute of Sport will be entitled to restoration payments of up to $50,000 if they suffered abuse during their time as scholarship holders.
The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) — which runs the Institute of Sport — is launching a "Restorative Program" for the 9,000 AIS scholarship holders between 1981 and 2013.
Last year, ABC Sport revealed former AIS gymnasts had suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse going back decades.
Gymnastics Australia unreservedly apologised to all athletes and their families who experienced abuse in the sport last May.
ASC chair Josephine Sukkar said it was crucial for the commission to acknowledge its past.
"Almost 9,000 athletes held AIS scholarships between 1981 and 2013 and, while we know many people had a positive experience, unfortunately, some athletes were treated inappropriately," she said.
"The program has been established to help our former athletes report and raise concerns directly with the ASC about practices at the AIS that were detrimental to their wellbeing."
The program — which begins on Wednesday — will cover all High Performance Scholarship holders from the Institute's opening until it stopped offering scholarships in 2013.
ASC chief executive Kieren Perkins said that, under the program, former AIS athletes would be entitled to counselling and support services, the opportunity to engage with senior representatives from the ASC and AIS, as well as a restoration payment.
Perkins said any former AIS scholarship holder should contact the program if they had suffered harm.
"Abuse of any nature has no place in Australian sport," he said.
"The program will be confidential and play a critical role in informing the practices of the sports sector in the future."
The restoration payments will range from a minimum of $5,000 to a maximum of $50,000, on a tiered basis, dependent on their treatment while they were at the AIS.
A panel from the ASC — which will include an independent person — will determine the amount of reparation an athlete will be paid.
The ABC understands the restoration payments will not preclude athletes from taking civil legal action against the Institute of Sport or the ASC.
An 'incredibly positive step'
Donaldson Law director Adair Donaldson is acting for 12 former gymnasts and three former rock climbers who are taking legal action against the ASC for harm they suffered while on scholarships or were training at the AIS.
He welcomed the program, calling it an "incredibly positive step".
"We should all acknowledge the courage of the athletes who have come forward because it is only through their … speaking out that this has come to fruition," Donaldson said.
"This is a tribute to them. They have made a difference for others."
AIS gymnastics scholarship holder from 2008 to 2010 Naomi Lee said she thought it was "good to see that they're reconciling with the past and trying to move forward and help those [who] have been affected".
Lee is one of the former gymnasts taking legal action against the ASC, and in her claim says she suffered various forms of abuse while she trained at the AIS.
She has welcomed the assurance that former athletes can engage with senior representatives of the ASC and AIS but wants an assurance that former athletes will have an avenue of appeal if they feel they are not being heard.
"My parents spoke to the highest level at the AIS and the response they got was 'everything's fine', essentially," Lee said.
"What exactly are they going to do, and is there a pathway we can go down if we feel like our needs aren't going to be met?"
Donaldson said the gymnasts he has been representing suffered variously from physical, psychological and sexual abuse during their time at the AIS.
"At long last, so many people are going to receive the acknowledgement, the apology and the assurance that things now are different, and — in addition to that — they will have access to some financial assistance," he said.
Donaldson said his practice had spoken to around 150 former elite athletes in the past year alone, from a wide range of sports, who had complained about the treatment they had suffered in their sports.
However, he warned, the new scheme was too narrow.
"There's going to be a large [number] of former child athletes [who] are going to miss out," he said.
He cited the thousands of child athletes who trained at the AIS over more than three decades, including those whose parents paid to have elite tuition at the institute under the eye of some coaches whose practices have now been discredited for causing physical and psychological harm.
"You would hope that the definition of those who are able to apply is sufficiently wide enough to cover those [who] were going there to train in the hope that they would achieve a scholarship program or, alternatively, wanted to access the best training facilities in the nation in the time," Donaldson said.
Melinda Coombes is one of those athletes.
Coombes represented Australia in artistic gymnastics at the 2000 Olympics while a scholarship holder at the Victorian Institute of Sport and spent months at a time training at the Australian Institute of Sport.
While she has never made a complaint about her treatment, she said she did suffer bullying, harassment and medical neglect during her gymnastics career.
Coombes has since helped set up the advocacy group Athletes Rights Australia.
"The horrific thing for me, in all of this, was — 20 years after I had finished gymnastics — to hear people coming forward with similar stories that I'd experienced 20 years prior," Coombes said.
"How are we still here, effectively, in the dark ages?
"It's long overdue but, thank goodness, they're taking this seriously."
Coombes said athletes needed psychological or financial support if they had suffered trauma as children.
"It doesn't go away," she said. "For some of them [who] have really suffered, it could be monetary [support] that is required for them to actually look after themselves."
However, she wanted to see assistance extended to any athlete who had been through the AIS, even if they weren't on a scholarship program.
"Most athletes at some stage of their career and, particularly at the elite level, are going to go through the AIS, at some point, for testing or training."
Donaldson said he now wanted the state institutes of sport to set up their own schemes to offer restoration to athletes.
In April, the Western Australian Institute of Sport apologised to athletes who had experienced abuse and harm in the artistic gymnastics program.
"The state institutes of sport that had similar scholarship programs in place and that faced similar systemic issues, you would hope that they would look at this example that has been developed by the federal government, and that they will act, in kind, and set up similar schemes for their own scholarship participants," Donaldson said.
