The gym owner said she reported concerns about coaches for years before being arrested in the sexual abuse case | Gymnastics

Early on his arrest after his deportation from gymnastics and allegations, he abused the girl he coached, warning signs about Sean Gardner came from multiple directions – his former boss, his gymnasts and their parents.

The former boss said her concerns about Gardner’s “touching” behavior brought to the United States gymnasticsthe national governing body of the sport. Parents and girls described telling coaches about misconduct during their new job at Gardner, an academy that trains Olympic athletes and is owned by famous coach Liang “Chow” Qiao.

However, Qiao not only kept Gardner working—he promoted him.

The Associated Press interview with four parents, their daughter’s training at Gardner and a letter obtained by a client whose former employer in Gardner received in her gymnasium revealed that the concerns about coaches were in 2018-2018-four years before he was kicked out of the sport.

A parent told the Associated Press that a girl told Qiao at a 2020 meeting that she was inappropriately moved by Gardner during training, but Qiao said any such contact was unintentional and intended to keep athletes safe.

“She felt completely ineffective,” the parents said of Qiao’s response.

The regulator responsible for investigating Olympic sports misconduct confirmed to the AP that Qiao and several other coaches were subject to private sanctions for failing to learn about Gardner’s allegations of sexual misconduct.

Qiao did not return AP emails and phone messages to seek comments. Gardner, 38, has been sentenced to jail since his arrest in a federal court lawsuit in Mississippi on August 14. He has not pleaded guilty yet, and court records have not shown whether he has a lawyer. He did not return to the AP for comment before being arrested.

One parent recalled attending Qiao with two other girls in 2019, discussing their daughter’s concerns, including Gardner making them uncomfortable with the way he touched them when he discovered and talked about inappropriate subjects.

Like everyone else, parents talked to the AP in anonymous condition to protect their daughter. The Associated Press usually does not identify victims of sexual abuse.

The meeting came after more than a year after Gardner’s former employer at Candi Workman, Mississippi, at a gymnasium in Purvis, said she discussed concerns with a U.S. gymnastics lawyer about “disturbing behavior” involving Gardner’s “coaching and embellishing behavior.”

Gardner was evacuated from the sport in July 2022 after a complaint of sexual abuse was received by the SafeSport Center in the United States and a temporary ban was issued, a move called “Gardner was banned from coaching young athletes” until he was arrested.

The center forwarded the information to the Iowa State Police Department, and the FBI arrested Gardner for three years on sexual exploitation charges. One of the most incredible evidence is the accusation that he installed a hidden camera in the bathroom of the Mississippi Stadium to record the girl’s 6-year-old younger.

Gardner’s rise and the sport can’t take him root, as news of Larry Nassar’s decades of sexual abuse of gymnasts is headlines, and gyms are implementing safeguards to better protect athletes. After learning of the abuse, the powerlessness of the U.S. Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee, and the inaction of the FBI, led to the establishment of SafeSport in 2017.

“It’s an act that girls don’t believe. They’re abandoned. They’re frustrated,” said attorney Megan Bonanni.

“What we’re seeing in Gardner is that multiple agencies are failing to act in accordance with the urgency of child safety requirements. … Local police, Savsport, American gymnastics and this gymnastics. All of that.”

In a recent letter, the owner of the Mississippi Stadium, the owner of the gymnast, told the gymnast and her parents in a recent letter that she reported Gardner’s “disturbing behavior” to Mark Busby, then-U.S. gymnastics attorney.

Workman writes that her concerns are related to “touching,” which American gymnastics defines as a process in which a person builds trust and emotional connections with his children, aimed at sexual abuse.

Workman did not elaborate on her report, nor did she return the AP’s message seeking comments. Busby, who was involved in athlete safety at the time and is now in private practice, declined to comment.

The SafeSport Center said that in January 2018, the U.S. Gymnastics notice that one of its affiliated gyms had resolved reports involving Gardner. But the center said it did not investigate further because the report was not related to sexual misconduct and did not receive detailed information.

Still, Gardner was able to leave Mississippi to do better in another U.S. gymnastics affiliated facility – Joe’s Gymnastics and Dance Academy, Iowa’s Maines, the gymnasium, which has become the Mecca for top gymnasts.

Zhou’s Gymnastics said Gardner passed a standard U.S. gymnastics background check when he was hired in 2018.

Concerns about his behavior in the gym began shortly after, but Gardner always took on more responsibility. A training group of girls pushed other adults to intervene, which led to a 2019 meeting between parents and Qiao.

But not long after, Chow’s gymnastics promoted Gardner to head coach on the main women’s team in January 2020, and told his parents in an email received by the AP: “He has proved leadership and worked hard to do the job well.” Gardner is also the director of “Chow Winter Classic,” which draws hundreds of gymnasts to Iowa every year.

Chow’s gymnastics kept Gardner paid after being arrested for a second criminal driving in August 2021, the crash hit him in another vehicle with a record of more than three times the legal limit for driving. Gardner was sentenced to one week in prison and two years of probation.

Chow’s gymnastics said in a statement that after a notice received in April 2022, it will be prohibited from one-on-one or unsupervised contact with athletes while SafeSport investigates unspecified misconduct.

Chow’s gymnastics said it carried out the measures and stepped down as Gardner as head coach. The gym said the gym fired Gardner in July 2022 after SafeSport strengthened Gardner’s temporary suspension of restricting coaches and all contact with athletes.

“Although no misconduct was found at the time, Chow’s gymnastics chose to make mistakes while protecting the athletes,” the statement said.

SafeSport said 2022 sanctions against Qiao and other coaches who have not reported allegations of sexual misconduct include warnings, education, probation and moratoriums.

The center does not usually comment on specific cases, but instead said in a statement to the AP that it has “a recent open letter from Chow’s Institute of Gymnastics and Dance that can correct records.”

The gym’s statement angered some parents and students from the previous week, whose concerns about Gardner were well known. Several Gardner students began leaving the gym in 2019, which their parents called the Mass Exodus.

A gymnast’s parents recalled witnesses touching Gardner to touch another girl’s hip while standing behind her during practice. Gardner told his parents that his hand had slipped by chance, and the father recalled warning Gardner, “No accident happened to my daughter.”

When the girl eventually resigns due to Gardner’s behavior, her father recalls limiting herself when Gardner comes out of the parking lot and says he’s sorry.

Bonanni, a lawyer for Nassar’s abuse of survivors, said she was bothered by the slow response of the Gardner case and hoped more victims would come forward.

“The damage caused by this abuse is permanent and it does last,” she said. “It changes the trajectory of young people’s lives.”