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Posted: 2024-06-19 21:10:26

In a corporate boardroom in Melbourne's CBD, a young girl was ready to speak.

Across the table were two investigators from Sport Integrity Australia (SIA), there to interview her about allegations of bullying and verbal abuse she had made against her gymnastics coach and club.

"You've got this very timid, very quietly spoken child [who] had this powerful voice and a powerful story that she wanted heard," says her mum, Kate* (not her real name).

Gymnastics Australia, SIA and the National Sports Tribunal set up a confidential complaints process in 2020 – called the Supplementary Complaints Management Policy (SCMP) – after the sport was rocked by revelations about former USA Gymnastics doctor and abuser, Larry Nassar. 

After years of complaining to Gymnastics Australia and her daughter's club about what she described as "relentless attacks", the new system gave Kate hope.

A blurred image of a woman in a blue top on her laptop. In the the foreground is a leaf.

Kate* says daughter was "re-traumatised" by her experience with SIA.(ABC News: Mark Leonardi)

"I felt that we had finally had the complaint land with an organisation that was equipped to be dealing with a complaint of such severe nature," she says.

"I had no other choice but to engage in a system where they're telling me it's child friendly, and it's independent, and they're experienced, and they know what they're doing."

In the course of the SIA investigation, Kate alleges age discrimination occurred. 

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