In 2010, seven years before his death, USA Swimming chief executive Chuck Wielgus established a so-called SafeSport program, the first by an Olympic-sanctioned sport governing body. In 2017 this reputed model for the investigation and adjudication of claims of sexual abuse by coaches led to the creation of an Olympics-wide agency, the U.S. Center for SafeSport. Earlier this year a congressional commission report said the center was a failure and recommended its spinoff as an independently funded federal agency.
I came to be reporting on the Olympic movement’s systematic predation of underage athletes through an accident of timing: I happened to have a young daughter who swam competitively for more than five years with our local USA Swimming-sanctioned club. Thankfully, she wasn’t a victim. In any event, I believe, victim-centricity isn’t the right lens through which to critique sexual abuse in swimming; the problem is much more diffuse and insidious. A better way to view things is to ponder why the U.S. Olympic Committee and its associated entities call the shots for all kid athletes, not just aspirants to gold medals and college athletic scholarships.
