I will no longer be silenced - Canadian Gymnast Abby (Pearson) Spadafora
Global Athlete has been asked to publish this open letter
I will no longer be silenced
- Canadian Gymnast Abby (Pearson) Spadafora –
26 May 2022: I will no longer be silenced. Breaking the silence of my lived experiences of abuse in Canadian gymnastics is a heavy one. For the benefit of every child, athlete, and parent in the sport it’s time for me to be vulnerable; it’s time to inform everyone that the type of behaviour I and many others were exposed to was never acceptable and must be stopped.
In October 2017, I received a phone call from Sarnia Police that changed my life forever. A call that brought to light the years of abuse I was subjected to in the sport of gymnastics. Other than my sister, my husband and therapist, no one knew of the abuse I had endured and with that one phone call, everything I thought I was taking to the grave with me, was about to be exposed. While I wasn’t a victim in the criminal trial, I remember telling the police officer, “you’re opening a can of worms”.
I started gymnastics at the age of two and by age seven I was training 25-35 hours per week. As a young child, I spent most of my time at the gym. This is when the grooming began that led to years of abuse. This is where I learned to remain silent, because speaking up had dire consequences. In fact, parents were never allowed in the gym and coaches justified it by saying parents were a distraction. This enabled our coaches to execute complete control over us and for us to be dependent on them for so much of our learning and development.
At the age of seven, I was weighed twice per day and measured sporadically for body fat. I still recall the pain of the fat calipers. It was the coaches’ goal to make us very aware of our weight. I was subject to my coach pinching my bum to fat shame me. I saw 12 and 13 year-old girls required to run while wearing garbage bags over their clothes in an attempt to sweat out retained fluids. In fact, I was so scared to gain weight I would hang my heels over the edge of the scale hoping for a lesser weight.
My coaches constantly harped on my diet and I knew not following their diet recommendations would be met with punishment. As a result, monitoring my food intake was a meticulous endeavour. Even when a mom prepared road trip care packages of crackers and cheese, we had to smuggle and hide the food for fear of getting caught and having to endure dreaded retribution from coaches.
I worked hard, but I was not the most naturally talented gymnast. This infuriated my coaches. I was constantly yelled at and kicked out of the gym. In fact, both Dave and Liz were mentally and verbally abusive towards children who struggled to learn skills or experienced mental blocks. I knew not to tell my parents because those who did were belittled and yelled at even more. If your parents were a problem, coaches made sure your gym days were harder.
At age eleven, I was physically assaulted by my coach, but my grooming ensured that I said nothing. One day practicing swing half turns on the bars, my hands kept shifting forward. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to fix it. My coach was furious. As a result, he put me on the low bar which is roughly 5ft high. He forced me into a handstand with my head 6ft from the floor. He then proceeded to scream at me “this is what happens if you don’t fix your hands”. He pushed my hands forward off the bar and let my legs go. I went crashing to the ground headfirst. He repeated this several times and not once did he check me for a concussion. My female coach, Liz, witnessed all this and never once intervened, never once cared about my wellbeing. She remained complicit with the abuse I endured. I was eleven! I was petrified and wanted to cry, but I knew I couldn’t for fear of retribution.
My goal was always to go to the Olympics and we were taught that “this is what it takes to make it”. At the age of thirteen, I was named to the Canadian National Team. This is when I was forced to go on a no-carbohydrate diet. My parents tried to intervene knowing this was an unhealthy and dangerous diet for a child. Afraid of my coaches, I complied.
The abuse never stopped. My male coach would regularly snap the back of my sports bras when I started wearing them. I was taught that gaining weight and puberty were a bad thing. Injuries were rarely taken seriously, and I was taught to hide the pain. The coaches would just say “suck it up” or “you need to lose weight”. To avoid raising awareness about injuries, my parents were rarely informed and rarely were doctors consulted. Instead, coaches treated our injuries. At times my toes were so split open I had to crawl around my home. My coach, not a doctor, treated me by using surgical glue in an attempt to glue the splits on my toes back together.
As the years went on, the abuse and neglect I endured continued to worsen. Leading up to 2000 Olympic trials in 1999 after the world trials, it was so bad I tried to quit the sport, with the loving support of my parents, but the coaches said all the right things and talked me back to training.
Looking back, the year leading up to Olympic trials was absolute hell. I honestly don’t know how I survived. As Olympic trials drew closer and practices became more intense, I missed a round off back handspring triple twist dismount. Trying to protect my head, I hit the beam hard and crunched my fingers into the beam. I realized my left middle finger was dislocated in two spots and when I went to show my coaches, I was told "go." While waiting for my mom, Dave tried to fix the dislocation. It was an excruciating experience. In the end, it took attempts by five doctors to finally put it back in place.
The year from hell continued when three weeks before the Olympic Trials, the biggest competition of my life, my coaches moved to Burlington, Ontario. In my brainwashed mind I had to follow them. This is when the abuse became sexualized.
In this new environment, my male coach told me I had to kiss him and my female coach to show the new girls they had to respect my coaches; I did as I was told and tried my hardest to avoid Dave’s lips at all costs. The kissing became so constant I was kissing my coaches at least 6 times per day.
My male coach took the sexual abuse further while on assignment with the Canadian team competing in Taiwan. My coach pulled me onto the center of his lap while in the swimming pool. He tickled my stomach, making me squirm, while my bum was directly on top of his private parts.
During the same competition, my coach knocked on my hotel door at around 2am. I thought it was strange that my coach was waking me in the middle of the night. When I opened the door, he told me his roommate had drank too much and puke was everywhere. He told me to go back to bed, which was a very small single bed. The next thing I knew, he climbed into the bed and spooned me. I froze. I was 17 years old and had never even kissed a boy at this point in my life. I was devastated and scared as he pressed his entire body against mine. I learned recently that another male coach was aware that he entered my room. Nothing was reported.
The abuse did not stop there. He also laid me down on his couch, spooning me intimately, telling me he wanted to touch me while his hand was under my shirt playing with my belly button. There were other incidents where he wanted me to expose my breasts to him and cuddle me in a hug from behind. I would cry myself to sleep thinking it was my fault and devastated that my first sexual experience was with my coach.
Thankfully, I accepted a scholarship to the University of Arizona and thought I could escape my coaches’ control. My first year of college I fell in love with gymnastics again. I also kept my deep secrets of the abuse I endured in Canada from my college coaches.. I was treated with care and dignity. Unfortunately, due to injury, I left the sport in my third year.
During my freshman year, after scoring a perfect 10, Dave called me fat and a disgrace to gymnastics. By this point I had started to realize how the toxic culture was and didn't go back. To this day I can’t look at photos from my college days; all I see is a fat failure.
The years of abuse have had lasting effects. I suffered with an eating disorder that was spiraling out of control because of years of fat shaming. I thought about taking a bottle of pills to never have to face my coaches, Dave and Liz, again. Luckily, I had an amazing Dad and have an amazing mom who were always supportive. They saved my life. To this day, I have never told my parents about the abuse I endured, but one call to say I was finished in the sport was met with open arms and love.
Gymnastics had been my entire life for 19 years and I was extremely lost with out it. My sister had been coaching and so I gave it a try. I loved the sport and I loved working with children. I also knew children were being abused and I thought, if I was in that gym I could protect gymnasts from the same abuse I experienced. Unfortunately, I got sucked back into the toxic culture with my old coaches, now my bosses, and the abuse started again. This time, my former coach whispered things in my ear like, “he will never love you the way I love you,” as my boyfriend (now husband) sat beside me. My boss had told my future husband to make a mold of my breasts before the doctors took out a lump, which doctors thought was cancerous. Both my old coaches threatened me with my job when I came forward to a board member about the sexual harassment. Unfortunately, my former coach/boss was also the club director and had full say. The complaint fell on deaf ears.
No matter how hard I tried to push the emotions down and stay in that gym to protect those little girls, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay. To this day I still struggle with guilt, knowing I could not protect those little girls from being abused.
These few pages will never capture the details of the years of abuse I faced at the hands of Dave and Liz Brubaker and the many bystanders that watched the abuse occur. I was physically, verbally, psychologically and sexually abused and no one in the sport protected me.
I have been in therapy for nine years trying to cope with the abuse I endured at the hands of my coaches. My therapy over the past few years now includes coping with the revictimizing complaint process Gymnastics Canada put me through.
The abuse I experienced as a child and young adult, and the Gymnastics Canada complaint process have had a major impact on my life in a negative way. I suffer from PTSD symptoms which include anxiety, panic attacks and constant nightmares. I also have serious trust issues when it comes to adults being around my children and OCD tendencies. Even though the years of abuse towards me, as a gymnast, happened many years ago, the damaging effects are something I will live with for the rest of my life!
Today, I refuse to be silenced. I stand with every survivor and I want them to know, I believe you!
It’s time for the Government of Canada to act. It’s time for the government of Canada to be as vulnerable as I am being today and expose the truth of what’s happening in gymnastics through an independent third-party investigation. Over 480 athletes have come forward, but still the government has done nothing. Too many survivors continue to suffer because of their lack of action. Imagine, being brave enough to come forward with your experience only to feel that no one cares or has the courage to take a hard look at the uncomfortable truth. Victims of abuse deserve to be heard and reform must come to light by learning from the past.
How many more children need to be abused before action is taken?
Abby (Pearson) Spadafora
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