golden girl (b.t.c.)

chapter thirty-five

wednesday, july 22
Team USA Gymnastics assistant
coach Tanner Easton accused of
verbal, emotional, and physical abuse
by World Champion gymnasts Eliana
Dempsey and Lola Sanchez
Coach Tanner Easton joined the coaching staff of gold medal-winning Team USA in 2010, two years before the London Olympic Games. He has been working with balance beam champion Lola Sanchez for over two years, and Eliana Dempsey (aptly dubbed the "princess of the uneven bars") for five.
Yesterday, the two gymnasts came to our editor in chief with claims of abuse-and a video to prove it.
In this video, Easton is shown screaming insults at a gymnast, Eliana Dempsey, who has just fallen off the balance beam. He tells her she is "too fat for beam," and that "she'll never make the olympic team."
"It's awful." Dempsey said. "You try so hard not to cry or even show any emotion, because if you cry, it gets worse."
The video was recorded by a friend of Dempsey's boyfriend, Ben Cook, who had come with Cook to pick Dempsey up from a practice in Toronto.
"I was terrified to release the video. I thought that nothing would happen and that he'd just get worse, but then I saw what he did to Lola. That was it for me." Dempsey said of the pressures to keep Easton's abuse secret. "I just couldn't let him hurt somebody else."
Lola Sanchez was practicing her vault when Tanner Easton hit her so hard that she fell to the ground.
"I was struggling on vault, and he just started screaming at me, and before I knew it, he slapped me in the face. His wedding ring left a mark." Sanchez stated. "Though it was the first time his abuse got physical, once I heard what happened to El in March, I knew we had to do something."
'What happened in March' was Dempsey's iconic perfect score on the uneven bars at national championships. But there's more to the story. Before her stellar performance, she had passed out after coming off of the mats from her floor exercise routine. Sanchez recalled watching from across the floor.
"She just looked like she was going to be sick." Sanchez said. "We were in shock when she went down, thinking 'Oh my god, how did this happen to her?'"
In the hospital later that day, accompanied by her boyfriend, Eliana Dempsey found out how it had happened. Malnutrition.
"He had told me that I had to stay under 88 pounds for the two weeks that I was training in Houston before the competition." Dempsey paused, recalling the feeling of those long two weeks. "I drank juice and ate, like, three crackers a day. It was horrible. I felt like I was going to die."
Easton threatened that she would be kicked off of Team USA if she didn't lose the weight. He also threatened to pull her out of the competition.
"Even on the second day of the competition. He told me that if I wasn't under 88, he'd pull me. I think I was at 89." Dempsey said. "So, I went to the bathroom and puked. There wasn't anything to throw up, but I did it anyway."
It is unknown whether USA Gymnastics has done anything about the accusations against Tanner Easton.
Emotional and verbal abuse like what Sanchez and Dempsey experienced has become the culture in USA Gymnastics. They aren't the first young gymnasts to report, and certainly won't be the last.