Friday, March 4, 2011

Coach Is Sexually Abusive ?

Hello. My mates and I are on our gymnastics Academy's National Team, so we spend a lot of time alone with our coach. During our first team training session, he has extremely nice and he told us that we could come talk to him about anything. About 1 month later he would start to get really touchy. At first we just ignored it because sometimes coaches have to touch the gymnasts, but than he started massaging us, patting us on our bums, kissing us on the lips, forehead, and cheek, making us sit on his lap, etc.. My mate Giselle and myself told him that we weren't comfortable with him kissing us and asked if he would mind not doing it. He told us that " that was just his way of showing us that he's proud of us and we'll get use to it." When he said that Giselle and I thought we were just overreacting. None of the others girls on the team were complaining. Than 3 months after that our team captain and also a very good mate of mine, Victoria had stopped coming to trainings. She never misses them. So I went to her flatt and I asked her were has she been and is everything okay ? She told me "no". Victoria told me that she doesn't want to be around our coach anymore. She went on to tell me that one weekend he had invited her to have lunch in London with him. She said since she was captain, in a way she felt obligated to go. Victoria than said that after lunch they had went back to his flatt because he wanted to show her old videos of his other former gymnasts, she said the only reason she agreed was because he told her that his wife would be there. When they had gotten there, his wife had out to visit family. She said that after he started telling her that " she was one of the best gymnasts he had ever coached", " She could be chosen for the Great Britain world team " "How beautiful she was", etc.. Vicky told me that he had asked her if she wanted to do "it" and she said she got scared and she told him no and he started to touch her and tell her that it wouldn't hurt and how much he cares about her, so they had sex. Vicky told me that she feels like it's her fault and that she feels soo dirty. So I told her that she needs to report him. She said she's scared that if she reports him, no one will believe her and her gymnastics dreams would be over. We've talked to others girls on the team and some of his former students, and similar things have happened to them. Sometimes we feel like we want to tell, then we'd start to doubt our self's. I know I want to tell someone,( I'm really close to both my parents, especially my dad, but I don't know to how tell them. Most of us one the national team are 16 and 17 years old and our coach just turned 24. I just hope I'm doing the right thing

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