|
Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2019 18:18:40 GMT
Ashley Wagner said she was sexually assaulted in 2008 by John Coughlin, a fellow figure skater who killed himself in January after being suspended for unspecified reasons and was later accused of sexual assault by a former pairs’ skating female partner. Wagner, a 2014 Olympian and 2016 World silver medalist, told USA Today the assault occurred after a house party with local athletes while she attended a June 2008 figure skating camp at Colorado Springs. Wagner was 17. Coughlin was 22. Wagner recounted it in a nine-minute video and first-person essay published by USA Today. “It was the middle of the night when I felt him crawl into my bed. I had been sleeping and didn’t move because I didn’t understand what it meant,” she said. “I thought he just wanted a place to sleep. But then he started kissing my neck. I pretended to be deep asleep, hoping he would stop. He didn’t. When his hands started to wander, when he started touching me, groping my body, I tried to shift around so that he would think I was waking up and would stop. He didn’t.” Wagner said she opened her eyes after five minutes, pulled away from Coughlin, grabbed his invading hand and told him stop. He did and left the room. “That is such a small amount of time, but it’s haunted me ever since,” she said. Wagner said that, at the time, she told two people close to her what happened and nothing else.” Wagner said she made a hard decision to include Coughlin’s name to add a bit of legitimacy to her story. “But this is not about a name,” she said. “This is about the environment that allowed for that act to happen. I want the issue to feel real to people, and for them to understand the dynamics of my sport, where uncomfortable power imbalances thrive to this day.” The U.S. Center for SafeSport and U.S. Figure Skating had given Coughlin, who became a coach and TV commentator after his retirement, an interim suspension for unspecified conduct.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 2, 2019 17:52:08 GMT
http://instagram.com/p/B0nwCqqJ7R5 "Believe women." Those are the words Ashley Wagner shared over social media hours after her story went public Thursday. The Olympic figure skater told USA TODAY Sports that the late John Coughlin sexually assaulted her in June 2008 after a party at a national team figure skating camp in Colorado Springs, Colorado, when she had just turned 17 and Coughlin was 22. Wagner said Coughlin got into her bed as she slept at the home where the party had taken place and began kissing and groping her. “I was absolutely paralyzed in fear,” she told USA TODAY Sports' Christine Brennan. Wagner also detailed the incident and her reason for publicly discussing it now in a first-person story for USA TODAY Sports. Here's what we know in the follow-up to her revelation. Determined to help 'next generation' Wagner, the 2016 world silver medalist and 2014 Olympic bronze medalist, said she was inspired to come forward by the #MeToo movement. Now, she wants her story to empower survivors and encourage others to believe them. "I feel so strongly that people need to talk more about these experiences, that they need to have a bright light turned on the dark corners where they thrive," Wagner wrote Thursday on Instagram.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 3, 2019 17:58:38 GMT
By waiting until seven months after his suicide to accuse fellow US skater John Coughlin of sexual abuse in 2008, Ashley Wagner has created an avoidable cloud of questions about her story, timing and motives. Wagner is not the first woman to speak out against Coughlin, who was in the midst of an official national skating federation investigation at the time of his death in January, which his family say contributed to his mental state. But recently-retired Olympic medalist Wagner is by far the highest-profile accuser of the male pair skater, who was never selected for the top competition. And while Wagner has been widely lauded for the courage of her first-person account, printed on Thursday in USA Today, at least online, if not in print media, there has been a backlash, demonstrating a nuance to a situation that #MeToo advocates often refuse to acknowledge. She was 17 and he was 22, the incident was “ambiguous” to her: Coughlin “crawled” into her bed after a team party –Wagner says it was her first such encounter ever– and began kissing her neck. To deter him, she says she first pretended to be in deep sleep, then that she was waking up, but he did not stop, groping her whole body. When she finally opened her eyes and pulled away his “invading hand” Coughlin “looked at [her] for a few seconds, quietly got up and left the room.” Wagner says she did not want to speak out against a popular fellow athlete, or “be known in figure skating as the athlete who would cause trouble,” or even for her parents to find out, as they'd be “mad” on discovering that their teen daughter was at a party. But most importantly, Wagner was not sure she’d been abused at all, acting as if “nothing happened” and thinking she’d “misinterpreted” the situation, as “no one had explained consent” to her. With the “knowledge and empowerment” of #MeToo, it is now “clear” Wagner had been “sexually assaulted,” and wants to help other teenagers avoid her fate.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 5, 2019 17:56:44 GMT
A figure skater has accused her former peer, John Coughlin — a figure skater who reportedly died by suicide earlier this year — of sexually assaulting her when she was a teen. Her accusation comes on the heels of another skater's similar accusation, following Coughlin's death. In a detailed USA Today piece published Thursday, skater Ashley Wagner accused Coughlin of sexually assaulting her in 2008 when she was 17 and he was 22. The alleged incident took place in Colorado Springs, Colorado, after a national figure skating team party. Wagner, now 28, said that she went to sleep at the house where the party was held. “It was the middle of the night when I felt him crawl into my bed,” she said. “ I had been sleeping and didn't move because I didn't understand what it meant. I thought he just wanted a place to sleep. But then he started kissing my neck. I pretended to be deep asleep, hoping he would stop. He didn’t. When his hands started to wander, when he started touching me, groping my body, I tried to shift around so that he would think I was waking up and would stop. He didn’t.”
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 9, 2019 19:05:21 GMT
In an exclusive interview on the 3rd hour of TODAY, Wagner said she shared her story to prevent anything similar happening to the next generation of young skaters. She said felt compelled to speak up when she watched the 13-year-old skater Alysa Liu become this year’s national champion. “In January, I watched Alysa Liu … coming into this world that I find so extremely flawed, and it just made me sick to my stomach,” Wagner said. “I feel like it’s my job as someone in this generation of skating to make the sport safer, because I know what it’s like and I know what to expect, and that 13-year-old girl does not deserve to go through the world the way that I did.” Wagner acknowledged that U.S. Figure Skating has made some important strides in protecting young skaters, including hiring trained chaperones to protect them while traveling and during skating events. “It’s a start, but change needs to happen quicker, because every single day that goes by without a massive change being made is another kid who’s getting put into a very uncomfortable situation.” A lawyer for U.S. Figure skating told TODAY that he feels his organization has a “good history” of tackling the issue of protecting young skaters, but that “doesn’t mean improvements can’t be made." “While I wish I could speak freely about the unfounded allegations levied against me … the Safesport notice of allegation itself stated that an allegation in no way constitutes a finding by Safesport or that there is any merit to the allegation.” Now that she has spoken out about her experiences, Wagner says her goal isn’t to focus on Coughlin, but to urge U.S. Figure Skating to fundamentally change its culture and procedures for keeping skaters safe. She added that hopefully, her story will give others the courage to come forward. “I truly hope so,” she said. “For me, the main reason I decided to come forward with my story was to show people that you can talk about these things.”
|
|