McKayla Maroney was a member of the US Women's Artistic Gymnastics Team. The athlete won a gold medal in the team championship at the 2012 Summer Olympics. The girl is the 2011 world champion and the silver medalist of the 2012 Olympics in the vault. But besides sports victories, McKayla is known for the terrible experience she received as a child.
Sport has always played a major role in McKayla's life. For the sake of a career, the girl even switched to home schooling.
Childhood and first achievements
McKayla Rose was born in the town of Long Beach in the family of Erin and Mike Maroni. The baby started doing gymnastics in 1997. When the girl was ten, the family moved to Costa Mesa, wanting to provide her daughter with classes in an elite gym.
Four years later, McKayla competed in state-level competitions. At thirteen years old, in 2009, there was the Visa Championships, her first major tournament. The National Annual Championships are hosted by the States Gymnastics Federation.
In wrestling, Maroni took 27th place in the absolute championship, and took "bronze" in the vault. It was this discipline that became its main discipline. In 2010, McKayla began training at the Los Angeles Gymnasium.
A year later, the girl won the vault at the world championship. As a member of the national team, she received "gold" in the team championship. Since 2012, she has been a gymnast in the country's Olympic team.
At the London Games, the team received, not without the participation of Maroni, a gold medal. The award was the first since 1996. When the girl received silver for the vault, the photographer captured her disappointed face.
As a result, the photo became an Internet meme with the slogan "McKayla is not impressed." The athlete agreed that the meme was really funny. In the blink of an eye, the snapshot spread across all social networks. It has become an excellent pretext for numerous parodies.
Even the then president of the country, Barack Obama, during a reception at the White House of gymnasts, was photographed with McKayla, repeating her "trademark" facial expression.
However, in real life, things were not at all that fun. When the girl was fifteen, she was abused. The story about this subsequently spread all over the world. According to the gymnast, the physiotherapist of the national team, Larry Nasar, began to harass her at the age of thirteen.
The terrible truth
Maroni felt his increased attention. Outright harassment began a couple of years later. The girl was sexually assaulted for seven years.
The American Federation had to take forced measures to save face. The gymnast was obliged to remain silent about the incident, promising to pay a million and a quarter dollars for injuries.
Only now they have forgotten that it is impossible with any money to heal mental trauma. Nasar's constant pretensions did not add to the joy of life. However, McKayla was able to tell about them only after the end of her sports career.
The harassment began with the first medical examination. Larry immediately warned that it was pointless to tell anyone: no one would believe it.
Even during the Olympics, a pervert doctor raped his victim. As the girl said, the offender "turned" to her several hundred times. But the worst night was her fifteenth birthday.
The athlete received a dose of sleeping pills on the way to Tokyo. She woke up already in the room with Nasar during the violence. McKayla was confident that she would die the same night.
Nasar called his actions "special therapy." He used every opportunity to "treat" the athlete he liked. In her Internet account, the girl talked about what happened in the fall of 2017.
Maroni accused not only a pervert, but also the Gymnastics Federation, the country's National Olympic Committee, the University of Michigan. They all knew about the doctor's harassment. but they were silent.
Lawyer Stu Mollrich, who represented McKayla's interests, insisted on compensation and on the removal from Maroni of the obligation to pay a fine for disclosing the incident. The lawyer found out that such "contracts for silence" were imposed on many athletes in order to cover up the hard-hitting truth about the state of affairs in sports.
Life after sports
According to Mollrich, more than a hundred female gymnasts reported harassment of Nasar. Larry has worked at four Olympics. Everywhere he had easy access to "young bodies."
The Indianapolis Star found out that for two decades, the monster pestered the charges, checking them for possible injuries. The search of the pervert's home was discouraging.
Found nearly forty thousand files of child porn. The scoundrel doctor was sentenced to one hundred and seventy-five years in prison.
The girl was able to decide on the disclosure of the truth thanks to the “Me too” movement. Its participants urged not to hide the victims of sexual violence experienced. The fact that the Gymnastics Federation and the NOC of the country, at the cost of the state of mind and health of more than a hundred girls, tried to shield the doctor, suggests that Larry was not acting alone.
USAG fully supports the famous athlete and admires her courage. In an official statement, the Federation pledged to take all possible measures to prevent the sexual assault that tarnished Maroni's memories of gymnastics.
McKayla offered her own options for stopping the abuse and drawing attention to the problem. At twenty-one, the gymnast completed her sports career, citing health problems.
In the future, she connects her life with creativity, sees herself as an actress or a singer. She sees herself in the future as an actress or a singer. The girl has already recorded several songs. McKyle's personal life is not covered.
