Aly Raisman Still Wants Answers

The American gymnast Aly Raisman is perhaps best known, among fans of the sport, for an ambitious and almost unbeatable floor routine. Scored to “Hava Nagila,” in honor of Raisman’s Jewish heritage, the set opens with a tumbling pass so loaded with flips and twists that it’s miraculous she’s ever managed to stay in bounds. A six-time Olympic medallist, Raisman earned gold on the floor in 2012, at the London Games, and silver in 2016, at the Rio Games, behind only her teammate Simone Biles. Under Raisman’s captaincy, the U.S. women achieved victory in the team competition at both Olympics. Raisman, who is now twenty-seven, announced her retirement from competition in 2020. She left the sport as the second most decorated Olympic gymnast in American history.

In recent years, Raisman has become equally well known as an outspoken advocate for athlete safety and as a fierce critic of USA Gymnastics, the sport’s embattled governing body. She captured worldwide attention, in 2018, as one of the gymnasts who testified at a public sentencing hearing for Larry Nassar, the disgraced former physician of the national team, after he was accused of molesting more than two hundred young women. (Nassar is serving what amounts to a life sentence in prison.) The revelations of Nassar’s abuse prompted repeated turnovers in the leadership of USA Gymnastics and produced a litany of headlines detailing the failures of the organization and of law enforcement in handling the allegations. (Earlier this month, a report from the Justice Department revealed delays in the F.B.I.’s investigation.) Since Nassar’s imprisonment, Raisman has partnered with Darkness to Light, a leading advocate for the prevention of child sexual abuse. In the world of élite sports, she told me, “I don’t think that we’ll see change with the same people in power.”

Raisman’s younger teammates often referred to her, lovingly, as Grandma Aly. Before the pandemic, she had planned to watch the Olympics live in Tokyo; instead, she FaceTimed with Biles as Team U.S.A.’s plane waited on the tarmac, and will watch the Games from home. Last week, as podium training began, I met Raisman on a hotel rooftop in downtown Boston. “I thought it was going to be harder for me, but I feel at peace,” she told me, of being a spectator rather than a competitor in the Summer Games for the first time since 2008. She wore bluejeans and beige flats printed with “The Future is Female.” With her were her mother and her beloved, blue-eyed rescue dog, Mylo, who recently went missing for nearly a week. During our conversation, Raisman wrapped Mylo’s leash around her waist, to keep him near. We spent two hours discussing the pandemic Olympics, the culture of gymnastics, and the delicate balance between the duty to speak out and the desire to move on. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

These Olympics are obviously unlike any other, because of the coronavirus. Recently, Kara Eaker, a U.S. women’s gymnastics alternate, tested positive and was placed under quarantine. I’m wondering if you’ve heard from any athletes about how they’re feeling or what is unique to the situation in Tokyo.

I feel so terrible for the athletes who have COVID. It’s devastating to think about working so hard and then not being able to compete when you’re so close. I also think about the mental health of athletes quarantining by themselves in a foreign country. I hope they’re getting the support that they need. It’s such a stressful time that I don’t even know what they’re thinking. There’s already enough pressure as it is.

Can you imagine what it would be like to compete in the absence of a crowd?

There have been times when the crowd is really helpful and uplifting. Then there are also times when I’m doing a bar routine and someone on another event falls and you can hear the crowd gasp, or the crowd erupts for someone else, and it startles you. One of the hard things about beam finals, for example, was I felt like I could hear a pin drop. It’s so quiet in there, and sometimes you can hear the clicking of the cameras, you can hear someone talking in the audience, so that might be distracting. Gymnastics is not one of those sports where you want to be pumped up.

I was curious if you’d followed Sha’Carri Richardson’s disqualification and what you made of that.

I support her, and I can’t say enough how impressed I am with her, and with how well she’s handled this. I can’t imagine the heartbreak that she feels. I think that the mental health of athletes is often ignored.

At least from what she’s saying, it sounds like she’s going to keep running, and, hopefully, she has many more Olympics in her, because I think she’s a superstar. To my knowledge, weed does not make you run faster, so I just don’t understand at all. Maybe they’ll end up changing the rules, because it seems like it’s very outdated.

How will the pandemic affect the broader Olympic experience—touring the host city, hanging out with other competitors? Do you think athletes this year are going to be missing a lot outside of just gymnastics?

Some of my favorite memories are things like going to the cafeteria and saying hi to the swimmers, or being able to meet athletes from other countries. We were so focussed on gymnastics, so it was fun to be able to have that nice distraction. I also loved pin trading with other athletes from all over the world. Even if you don’t speak the same language, you can still trade with them and communicate.

This year, if athletes don’t make an event final, they have to leave. We have so many great memories after we finished competing of just hanging out together. In Rio, we went to the beach. We went to both closing ceremonies. I feel sad that they’re not able to experience that.

I saw a recent poll indicating that only twenty-two per cent of the Japanese population believes that the Games should proceed, and there have been some questions in the press about the ethics of continuing the Olympics at all amid, as the Times recently put it, bidding scandals, human-rights outrages, doping revelations, etc. Is there a case for the Games to be abolished altogether, or do you feel strongly against that?

What I love about the Olympics—and it might make more sense to say this at a time when we’re not in a global pandemic, and maybe I’m biased because I competed in them, and I dreamed of going when I was a young gymnast—is that it has the opportunity to bring people together to share a love for sports. When I was little, my favorite gymnasts weren’t just from the U.S. I looked up to Ukrainian gymnasts, Romanian gymnasts, Russian gymnasts, and people from all over the world.

But I do think that it’s important to listen to people’s concerns with how things have been handled in the past. Gold medals shouldn’t be the most important thing. It’s important for the [International Olympic Committee] and anyone else in charge of these Olympic Games, and whoever is hosting them, to listen to what people are saying. It’s probably not a surprise to you that I agree there are many times where people at the top don’t put safety and well-being first.

Can you help us understand how the yearlong postponement would affect an Olympic hopeful’s training?

I don’t know what I would have done. I don’t know if I would have survived it physically and mentally. There are so many different factors—maybe some athletes couldn’t afford to train for a whole other year, which is heartbreaking. For a lot of these athletes, unfortunately, their worth is defined by making the Olympic team. It’s important for national governing bodies like USA Gymnastics to make sure they have programs in place for the athletes who do get injured, or who don’t peak at the right time, so that they know they’re more than just gymnasts, and that if they don’t accomplish their Olympic dreams now they still have their whole lives ahead of them. That’s not something that’s in place right now. Even the gymnasts who felt like they benefitted from the extra year and still didn’t make the team—it’s gut-wrenching to talk to them, and to hear just how broken they feel.

I want to follow up about the financial support, or lack of it, for Olympic athletes. I saw recently that there was a fund-raiser for Allan Bower, a Tokyo alternate who was denied funding for his travel and training. Was that a surprise to you?

No. After Rio, USA Gymnastics cancelled my health insurance, and—I want to be careful legally here—according to my knowledge, I was not notified. So we were not surprised, unfortunately. There’s not support for athletes. The fact that they treat people like Allan the way that they do—it’s not acceptable.

I want to get back to USA Gymnastics in a bit, but I had to ask: How did you react to the original news about the pandemic? I know that you said, in January, 2020, that you weren’t planning to compete in Tokyo. Was there any thought that, with another year before the Games, you’d make a comeback?

The thing about gymnastics is, even if I wanted to, there wouldn’t be enough time. A year and a few months would probably be enough time for me to have all of my skills back, but I would not be close to being in routine shape. When I first came back, after London, it took me a whole year. The first six months, I did mostly conditioning. My coach, Mihai [Brestyan], barely even coached me. I had to beg for his attention, because I think he wanted to show me that I had to earn his respect coming back. He was not going to do it unless I was really serious.

There was probably one time in the last few years that I thought I’d come back again. I was actually surprised that Mihai said no. He would support me if I really wanted to, but he said, “Just go live your life and be happy. Enjoy yourself.” My mom says the same thing. I ask myself why I would come back. I think it would be because I felt pressure to, because I was good. There’s something to be said about that fear of defining yourself by the sport, and so I’m just trying to work on figuring out who I am outside of gymnastics. For the first time in my life, I have more of a social life. I didn’t have time for any of that stuff before. Now I can just have a friend over on a Wednesday night.

At the European championships this year, three German gymnasts wore unitards rather than leotards, and this kicked off a discussion in the press. One of the athletes wrote on Instagram that it was a symbolic gesture for “all gymnasts who might feel uncomfortable being sexualized in normal suits.” What are your thoughts on that?

I think that people should be able to wear whatever makes them feel comfortable and do whatever makes them feel good. If you don’t feel comfortable wearing your leotard, I support that. If you feel comfortable wearing your leotard, I support that, too. I always stand by the idea that women don’t have to be modest to be respected, and they should be able to wear whatever makes them feel good. When I was competing, I loved wearing leotards and always looked forward to wearing them. I felt confident in them, but I recognize I’m not the only one competing and other gymnasts don’t feel the same way.

You’ve said that you can still feel, in your body, the impact of all your training. Do you see a point in the future when you’ll feel fully recovered?

Since I came back in 2014, my body has never felt the same. I’ve just felt a lot more tired. I’m definitely feeling a lot better, but I also feel, added on to that, the stress of dealing with all the abuse personally, and then coming forward. I don’t think I ever had a moment where I gave myself time to rest. There are moments when I start to feel better, and then something else happens—for example, the report just came out about the F.B.I. It’s not easy to just say, “Oh, this is trending, and it’s in the news everywhere, but I’m just going to let it go and not think about it.”

It’s hard to turn the page, because it’s so personal to me, and then I also feel this pressure: I should say something. Or, do I have to say something? Will it look weird if I don’t say something? I feel a lot of pressure to make sure that I’m saying the right thing or speaking up at the right time, but then there’s the balance of not wanting to speak up so much that people start tuning me out.

Chellsie Memmel, the 2005 world all-around champion, recently returned to competition, in her early thirties.

Yes, it’s so awesome.

Could you see yourself doing something like that in the future—more casually, more on your own terms? “Casually” might be the wrong word, because she went to Nationals!

I don’t know if people realize how impressive it is. She’s had two kids. It’s just amazing. Also, to see that she’s doing it for herself—it’s very unusual to see that in the sport of gymnastics. It definitely has inspired me. I think at this point my answer would be that I don’t see myself doing that, but I guess you never say never. [Laughs.]

I don’t enjoy doing gymnastics like I used to, and, to be honest, I feel there’s still a lot of people in the sport that I don’t think are good people. It would be hard to be on the competition floor even if I wasn’t competing, just being in that environment. I think it would be too triggering for me at this point. I’m just not ready for that.

At the end of the day, one day I want to get married, have kids. I want to be as normal of a mom as I can. I didn’t have that normal life, and I crave that so much right now.

Is this a sport where you could say, “I just want to do a tumbling pass, or throw a quick vault?”

No, you definitely couldn’t.

It’s not casual like that?

Not at all. No. I get dizzy even if I do a cartwheel now. [Laughs.] It would take me a long time to get back into it. You don’t realize how much you use every part of your body and how dizzy you get and how used to that you have to get.

I wanted to ask about Simone [Biles]’s new vault and some of the scoring controversies that have come up. There have been some debates about whether the international federation is undervaluing these vaults to discourage other athletes from attempting dangerous moves. Do you think the scoring system is broken in any way?

I’m not up to date with the code, but I know Simone and other athletes have been outspoken about the value of their skills, and I think it’s important that [the International Gymnastics Federation] hear them out, have a conversation with them, and explain their reasoning. I’m pretty sure that, in the last couple of quads, they’ve continually devalued certain skills on vault. I often wonder whether that’s because the U.S. team is so deep on vault, and vault is where, in a lot of our competitions, we’ve been able to get ahead. Simone’s vault is incredible. Each time I watch it, it gets more and more impressive.

You mentioned the recent report about the F.B.I., which was released right as the Olympic team was headed to Tokyo. The errors on the part of USA Gymnastics are often described as failures or oversights. Do you think that’s generous?

I feel like there are still so many unanswered questions. Until there is a full understanding of what happened and who was involved, and how this was allowed to go on for so long, we can’t have any confidence in a new USA Gymnastics or confidence that the culture has changed. In my opinion, I think that there has been a coverup, and I think that we all deserve answers. The current and future gymnastics community deserves answers, too.

I’ve heard the calls before for an independent investigation, but it seems like one troubling reality is that so many authorities have proved themselves to be untrustworthy. In “Athlete A,” the Netflix documentary, I remember Maggie Nichols’s parents saying they were under the impression that USA Gymnastics and Steve Penny were taking care of Nassar, and that turned out not to be the case. Who do you think is capable of the sort of investigation you envision?

There needs to be a completely independent investigation so that USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic Committee don’t control what is actually released. The scope of the investigation matters. It needs to be that nobody’s off-limits. They need to have access to text messages, e-mails, everything, and go as far back as they need to. There hasn’t been anything like that at all.

Li Li [Leung, the president and C.E.O. of USA Gymnastics] came in not having anything to do with this, and so she had a real opportunity to say, “I’m going to have someone completely investigate every single thing.” She could have been the hero. I don’t know why she’s gone on to being a huge part of the problem. I don’t know why she even took the job to begin with. It’s the same with Sarah Hirshland, who’s the C.E.O. of the United States Olympic Committee. [In an e-mail, Leung told The New Yorker, “We recognize how deeply we have broken the trust of our athletes and community, and are working hard to build that trust back. Everything we do now is aimed at creating a safe, inclusive, and positive culture for everyone who participates in our sport.”]

We’ve seen so many turnovers in leadership. Is it possible for USA Gymnastics to change, or will reforming the culture of the sport require a much broader overhaul of the governing body?

When I think about USA Gymnastics, I think it’s just, like, rotten from the inside out. It’s not a good organization. Perhaps there are some people who have the intention of doing the right thing, but I think the leadership at the top needs to be completely redone.

The United States Olympic Committee is a disaster, too. It’s not just a problem in USA Gymnastics. I know that figure skaters and other athletes have spoken out about abuse. A lot of these organizations are corrupt, and the U.S. Olympic Committee is in charge of all of that. They need to hire people who actually care, who take this seriously, and they’re not. [In an e-mail, a representative for the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee said, “We want to repeat our apology to all those who have been harmed and underscore our commitment to uncovering and addressing the organizational failures that contributed to an environment in which Nassar preyed on athletes.” The representative added that the investigation conducted by the organization in 2018 was “fully independent and exhaustive.” USA Gymnastics did not respond to a request for comment.]

We now know that as recently as 2012 Nassar was abusing athletes under the guise of medical treatment during Olympic competition. Do you have any confidence today in the ability of USA Gymnastics to protect the current team’s mental and physical health?

No, none.

Do you worry about the organization’s oversight in Tokyo?

[Sighs.] I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t know who’s there. I don’t know the type of trainers they have with them—if they’re using people from USA Gymnastics, or from the United States Olympic Committee, I’m honestly not sure. I think the problem is, USA Gymnastics thinks that everything will get swept under the rug because the Olympics is going on, and people will just forget about it. Our story is so public, and the platforms that some of us have are big. I can’t imagine how someone else without these platforms would be treated, because we’ve been completely ignored by the organizations and by certain members of law enforcement, and we’ve been saying the same things over and over again. I have more faith in the younger generation, so I’m hoping that when they grow up they can get into these positions of power. I think that’s when we’ll start to see change.

Since the revelations of the Nassar scandal, countless gymnasts across the world, at the élite level, at the N.C.A.A. level, have shared stories of broader but also sometimes subtler abuse—emotional abuse, verbal abuse. Do you think that a punishing culture is inherent to gymnastics? Is it possible to change the culture without changing the sport?

I think from a very young age you’re taught that your self-worth and how you feel should reflect what your coach thinks of you. If I take a turn and think I did a good job, but my coach says I did a bad job, I’m going to then think that what I felt was wrong. I’m just going to listen to my coach. That can be a hard way to grow up, thinking that everything I do needs approval from the adults around me.

I just think that the culture of the sport needs to change. It’s been normalized for this long. That’s why a lot of athletes don’t recognize when something bad is happening, because when it’s happening to your teammates or your friends it’s hard to recognize that it isn’t normal. Sometimes athletes don’t know how bad it is until they start going into normal life and they see how they can be treated so much better.

If you look at the past few decades, the American women’s dominance seems to have coincided with an authoritarian style of coaching. In reforming the culture, is there any risk that the quality of American gymnastics would decline?

I personally don’t think so. When I was competing, I was so tired. I was so stressed. We didn’t understand much about mental health. I didn’t have tools to cope with my own anxiety or things that I was dealing with personally.

There’s definitely a better way. We’re not saying that we don’t want to work hard. We love working hard. We recognize the passion and the dedication it takes. But there’s a better way—building someone up instead of tearing someone down, creating an environment where abuse is not allowed. I always say that I competed and did well while I was being abused, and we were being traumatized repeatedly, and there was so much pressure. If you take away the abuse, and you make it an environment where I’m not doing well out of fear, and I’m not terrified that if I fall I’m going to get in so much trouble, don’t you think that we would do even better? I think it’s a no-brainer that you’re going to do better when you’re not being abused at the Olympics.

Maggie Haney was suspended from coaching for eight years after several athletes came forward to report abusive behavior. Haney has since sued USA Gymnastics for unfair treatment. Do you think that the line between rigorous coaching and abusive coaching is clear-cut or hazy? Does it ever depend on the athlete?

I think it’s clear-cut: you can push your athlete while still treating them with respect and treating them as a human being. What people don’t understand is, a lot of these athletes are training on broken ankles. They have fractured backs. I had the stomach flu once and was up vomiting all night. I remember getting to training camp the next day, and instead of them saying, “Why don’t you take it easy today?,” they were just, like, “We’re going to throw you in, and you have do everything, like everyone else.” And not only that. When you have the stomach bug, you lose weight. They were telling me, “You look so good. You’d better not gain any weight.”

It’s a very old-school mentality among people on the national staff. I don’t know if they’re still there, but when I was there they thought that if you drank too much water you were going to gain water weight.

When you are properly fed, when you’re hydrated, when your body feels good, when you feel like you can communicate, when you are sick and feel comfortable saying “I can’t do this anymore—I feel like I’m going to hurt myself,” you’re going to end up competing better at the Olympics. There’s just no question in my mind.

This summer, you’ve returned to Camp Woodward, which you once attended yourself, as the gymnastics-program designer. Can you talk about the experience?

It’s been healing to be in a gymnastics environment that is fun and uplifting. I was coaching the kids. When I went there a couple of weeks ago, I was scooping ice cream for them. We rode go-karts. I did horseback riding. It was the first time I was really back in the gym in a long time. It reminded me of when I was younger, too, of just how much fun gymnastics is. It’s cool to be able to fall in love with the sport again.