Aly Raisman: U.S.A. Gymnastics Horror “Is Bigger than Larry Nassar”
On Wednesday, Larry Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison after more than 150 women test..
On Wednesday, Larry Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison after more than 150 women testified in court, delivering harrowing stories of sexual abuse at the hands of the lauded sports physician. On Thursday, one of the fiercest and most eloquent of those women, Aly Raisman, appeared on the Today show to deliver one message: this isn’t over.
“We need to hold these organizations accountable,” the three-time Olympic gold medalist said. “U.S.A Gymnastics, United States Olympic Committee, M.S.U., they need an independent investigation. This is bigger than Larry Nassar. We have to get to the bottom of how this disaster happened. If we don’t figure out how it did, we can’t be confient that it won’t happen again.”
During her powerful 13-minute testimony on Friday at Nassar’s sentencing, Raisman excoriated not only Nassar, but also U.S.A. Gymnastics and the United States Olympic committee, both of which had ignored complaints about Nassar’s conduct for decades. Last year, Nassar was sentenced to 60 years for the possession of child pornography; as Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sentenced him to 40 to 175 years on Wednesday, she said, “I’ve just signed your death warrant.”
When asked what it was like to be in that room with Nassar, Raisman noted that it felt very similar to competing in the Olympics, where she blocked out everything and focused. “I forgot that people were watching me; I forgot the media was over there; I forgot that Larry was right there,” she said. “I just spoke, and I felt like I really had to be strong. I had a responsibility. But after, I will be honest, I was sick. I almost passed out. I had the worst headache for hours. I still don’t feel good now. It’s hard to put into words, but it makes me literally sick, all the stress and the trauma of everything.”
Nassar, Raisman added, looked at her the entire time she was speaking, even making eye contact, which she called “crazy; I did not expect that at all.” Raisman said she hadn’t seen Nassar in person since training camp in 2015, but she’s seen him on television and looked at pictures ahead of her court appointment to prepare herself. “I didn’t know how I would feel,” she said, “but when I walked in there, being with this army of survivors, and even—I didn’t know most of these girls and these women, but I just felt an instant connection. We were hugging each other. We really are an army of survivors, and this is just the beginning of us.”
Raisman expressed immense gratitude for the support she and the other women have received; over the weekend, her words appeared on several signs at various women’s marches, as Today host Hoda Kotb pointed out. Still, despite Nassar’s sentence, Raisman said the organizations behind U.S. Olympics have more work to do. “I recently found out, according to my knowledge, Larry Nassar did not have a medical license in Texas, which is where we went to the ranch and trained,” Raisman said. “What does that say about U.S.A. gymnastics and the United States Olympic Committee? Whether they new or didn’t know, that’s a big problem and we need to investigate how this happened. I mean, how is this possible?”
As for what she hopes to do in the future, Raisman was clear: “I want to make sure this never, ever happens again,” she told Kotb.
Get Vanity Fair’s HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Laura BradleyLaura Bradley is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com. She was formerly an editorial assistant at Slate and lives in Brooklyn.
