(ATR) Interim United States Olympic Committee chief executive Susanne Lyons says that the board of directors is developing an immediate and long term plan to address athlete safety.
The USOC board of directors met today in Los Angeles where an "athletes action safety plan" was discussed on how to better protect U.S. athletes in the wake of multiple ongoing sexual abuse scandals. In the past months National Governing Bodies USA swimming and taekwondo have seen sexual abuse scandals unfold, as the fallout from the sprawling USA gymnastics scandal continues.
Lyons was not in LA with the rest of the board. She was in Washington D.C. listening to testimony by athletes in front of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and Data Security. Lyons said it was important to "listen and learn" as athletes shared stories of sexual abuse to lawmakers. The USOC had been previously criticized for not attending the Larry Nassar trial in Michigan until the sentencing was near complete, thereby missing most of the victim statements.
As for relations with NGBs, Lyons said that immediate plans were drawn from "lessons we have learned so far based on the Nassar situation". She admitted the USOC must make changes to its own safe sport policies "looking at our own house," and are working to integrate athletes’ voices into the process.
"We are looking at what our role with the NGBs is, and there is a fair amount that is not always clear what the role is we should be playing," Lyons said. "What we need to do is examine the policies and procedures in play, and figure out our interactions particularly when it relates to athletes' grievances. Sometimes athletes fall between the cracks when they have an issue with their NGB and [we need to see] if the USOC could advocate for them."
Right now the USOC is limited in its scope by the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which gives the USOC control chartering NGBs for Olympic sports. Lyons said that lawmakers are "very interested in clarifying" relationships between the USOC and NGBs. However, those clarifications would not extend to "stepping into [NGBs’] day to day" governance.
USOC chairman Larry Probst said that the board of directors heard a presentation from the U.S. Center for Safe Sport and its activities. The USOC created the center, an independent nonprofit, in 2015 to handle the responses to cases of abuse in Olympic sport.
Despite endowing $10 million to the project to start it, Probst said that the center remains "under resourced".
"We strongly encouraged them to move quickly to add the additional resources they need so they can be fully functional and be more responsive to those reporting abuse," Probst said. "We recently doubled our commitment to the Center for Safe Sport, so they have plenty of money to move forward and put those resources in place. Our encouragement to them was you need to go faster and you need to be more responsive to the people that are experiencing abuse and reporting those incidents."
Lyons confirmed the USOC commitment to the center now stands at $1.5 million annually, following the increased contribution. The USOC also increased its contribution to the USA Gymnastics victims fund, Lyons said. That contribution can only be used for support of the athletes, and not NGB operations.
The USOC continues to search for a new chief executive, Probst said. Meanwhile, the independent investigation by the law firm Ropes & Gray into who at the USOC knew what about the USA gymnastics scandal and when remains ongoing, Lyons said. The USOC had originally expected the investigation to be finished by early summer, but it "may take a little longer," Lyons added.
"We’re not really waiting for those results to take action but when they do have results we will make those public, fully transparent and be preparing an action plan for anything that comes out," Lyons said.
Written by Aaron Bauer
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