Athlete A...on Netflix

Yep, Nassar is a sick dude

Good point though, she was a stud at Oklahoma

I thought the HBO Doc on the same subject was better. At least I saw it on HBO last year I believe.

Those kids parents were not giving up on that dream

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Watching it now. Got about 45 minutes left. I’m not that bothered by the physical and emotional (NOT SEXUAL) abuse of the athletes they covered the first 30 minutes. I’d wager most of those girls would endure it again for the Gold. I am open to being wrong.

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But getting use to the emotional abuse led to everyone, including the athletes, being quiet about the extremely blatant sexual abuse. Everyone else's abusive behavior helped Nassar gain the athlete's trust.

Learned nothing new in the way of Nassar but I was surprised at the complacency on the part of the organization and the FBI. The whole look the other way by a federal agency for a job while a guy molests young girls came as a huge shock. After watching the Epstein doc on Netflix you can certainly draw some parallels around institutional failure.

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How about all the girls that never won a medal or even got the chance to compete at the Olympics? Nevermind the abuse occurred when they were children.

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My daughter was a competitive gymnast for 7 years, followed by diving in HS and NCAA. We have watched both documentaries and found them very different. I liked both. HBO focused more on the girls and women and Netflix on the research and catching him.

When the scandal came out, my coworkers all were just shocked. Not me! Gymnastics (and probably figure skating as well) was an easy target for someone like him. The whole culture encourages parents to not be involved. They tell you it's better for the girls if you're not there because sometimes they cry and would want to run to mommy. Plus, at 9-10 years old, they could be training 20+ hours per week and nobody has tat kind of time to just sit for hours.

My daughter went to 2 gyms, both of which had a few elite athletics, but not Olympians...they both had male Olympians. She experienced many emotionally abuse moments and even a little physical. Examples are her coach grabbing girls and throwing them off or pushing them off the beams when they were elementary age. A teammate climbed the rope (it went all the way to the top of the gym) till her hands bled. Coaches ripped band aids off ripped hands during bars. Practice was usually an hour on each event followed by an hour of conditioning. Coaches frequently belittled and yelled.

But...my daughter doesn't regret it, she's tough as nails, and rarely fails at anything she attempts. Her work ethic and time management skills are off the charts and her grades were fabulous...3.7 in college. Most the the gymnasts turn out this way. For the average gymnast, there was emotional abuse, but it wasn't at the same level as the elites endured under Marta.

But Larry Nassar, Steven Penny, and Kathie Kladges, the MIchigan State coach who had an athlete report his abuse to her in 1997, all have a special place in hell! So many girls and women should not have suffered. It wasn't until some of the teens became women with kids that they knew they had to do something!

Wowwww. Watching this is terrifying. What a POS. He sounded so incredibly guilty talking with the cop.

I feel so so bad for Maggie. That has to have been traumatizing. I bet this documentary is a somewhat cathartic frick you to everyone involved.

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Coaches frequently belittled and yelled

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But...my daughter doesn't regret it, she's tough as nails

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Its interesting to me that you brought this up as it was one of the things that bothered me a bit when I watched. I know as I am typing this it wont be main stream popular but we could do with a little more of this these days. Instead of parents rushing in because a coach picked on their kid....let a kid cope with the occurrence themselves. I went to high school in the 80s and I had coaches that insulted, belittled, grabbed face masks, shoved and grabbed shoulder pads....they did it for a reason, it pissed me off and it made me better. I never took it personally and I still look up one of them occasionally when I get back to LA.

I'm certainly not saying the pedophilia is OK and its was exacerbated y the intimidation. I am saying I don't 100% disagree with the way Karoly coached his gymnasts - it obviously made them better and it looks like that type of coaching helped your daughter. But he damn sure should have reported any sort of molestation at the first hint. That's where he lost me. He ruined lives and spoiled that coaching method in the same process.

And yes I know its the same old softening of Americas youth POV.

Just finished this. What a POS.. The whole bunch of them.