IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Recalling the harm her now-arrested coach inflicted on her and lots of of her gymnast buddies, Finley Weldon stated she feels a way of delight.
Free from the grip that Sean Gardner had throughout her years of coaching at an Iowa academy recognized for producing Olympians, Weldon instructed The Related Press in an unique interview that she is among the many few who survived his abuse and are nonetheless within the sport.
The 18-year-old is heading into her freshman yr at Iowa State College, the place she’ll be a member of the Cyclones gymnastics staff. She spoke with the AP on Wednesday, lower than per week after Gardner was arrested on a toddler sexual exploitation cost.
“I didn’t need him to remove something from me, particularly one thing that I really like,” she stated. “Not one of the women that I began with or went by way of the issues that I did with Sean are nonetheless doing gymnastics right this moment. In order that’s one thing I’m very pleased with.”
She’s additionally pleased she’s made a distinction, in the identical means gymnasts she admires — like Aly Raisman, an Olympian whose visceral accounts of abuse by Larry Nassar shined a highlight on the trauma gymnasts went by way of and the way authorities did not curb it.
The AP typically doesn’t determine victims of sexual abuse, however Weldon stated she needed “my identify on the market as a result of I used to be the one who did come ahead.”
“I felt like I wanted to talk out to cease it from taking place to different little women, so that they didn’t need to undergo what I went by way of,” Weldon stated.
“I knew it could simply be a steady cycle if no person did.”
Gymnasts reported abuse to watchdog in 2022
The FBI stated Tuesday it believes Gardner “focused kids” whereas teaching at Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, and gymnasiums in Mississippi and Louisiana the place he labored relationship again to 2004.
Gardner, 38, didn’t return AP messages left on his cellphone earlier than his arrest, and has not entered a plea to the cost. A public defender who represented him after his arrest hasn’t returned messages.
One other former gymnast at Chow’s, the academy recognized for producing Olympic gold medalists Shawn Johnson and Gabby Douglas, first reported sexual abuse allegations in opposition to Gardner to the U.S. Heart for SafeSport in March 2022, alleging he fondled her throughout coaching periods, in line with an FBI affidavit.
That lady supplied the names of six different of Gardner’s potential victims, in line with the affidavit. Weldon stated she spoke with a SafeSport investigator about her abuse on the time.
SafeSport, a watchdog created after the Nassar scandal to research misconduct complaints, knowledgeable the West Des Moines Police Division concerning the allegations. It suspended Gardner from teaching or having contact with any gymnasts in July 2022.
The police division stated its investigation was closed in 2022 when the preliminary accuser determined she didn’t need to pursue fees.
Weldon stated police by no means reached out to her in 2022 however she’s uncertain whether or not she would have needed to press fees then. She stated she got here ahead in April 2024 at age 16 after she matured and started to appreciate the severity of her abuse.
She praised police for doing “an incredible job” protecting her knowledgeable concerning the progress of the case.
“It’s positively taken awhile, however I imply, even I didn’t understand what number of steps there could be to cost him with something,” she stated.
Police defend investigative efforts
Iowa investigators say they searched Gardner’s house in Could and seized digital gadgets that contained photos of nude women from a hidden digital camera Gardner positioned within the toilet of a Purvis, Mississippi, fitness center the place he beforehand labored.
West Des Moines Police Sgt. Daniel Wade stated Wednesday the division sought the FBI’s help in mid-July when the case’s “scope began to broaden.” Requested why the division didn’t contain FBI sooner, he stated, “We name the FBI when the time is true.”
Gardner is charged in federal court docket in Mississippi with producing visible depictions of minors partaking in sexually express conduct associated to the alleged hidden digital camera. Federal and state investigations stay energetic, and extra fees are doable.
Wade defended the division’s investigative efforts during the last three years. He stated investigators “went as far with it as we might” in 2022, and not using a sufferer searching for fees and have been conducting an intensive investigation since receiving the brand new criticism in 2024.
Wade declined touch upon whether or not investigators reached out to Weldon and different potential victims recognized in 2022, saying solely that police opened “strains of communication with totally different individuals” that later paid off.
Weldon stated she met with investigators Tuesday and so they requested her to determine herself in a picture Gardner allegedly secretly took of her in a weak stretching place.
Defending the ‘male determine in my life’
Weldon stated her objective since she was a woman was to achieve the elite stage within the USA Gymnastics Junior Olympic program for individuals who purpose to compete internationally.
She stated she began coaching at Chow’s after her household moved to Iowa in 2015. She started taking personal classes with Gardner two or 3 times per week shortly after he joined Chow’s in September 2018, when she 11 years outdated.
Weldon stated she was struggling as her mother and father went by way of a divorce and her father was largely absent from her life. She stated Gardner sought to fill that position by telling her she might inform him “something” and that he would at all times be there for her.
In hindsight, she stated he was manipulating her in an effort to achieve her belief.
Finley’s mom, Julie Weldon, stated she heard issues about Gardner from different mother and father at Chow’s early on and requested her daughter whether or not her coach had ever carried out something inappropriate. Finley stated she falsely instructed her mom no as a result of she was defending the “male determine in my life.”
Inappropriate conduct progressed
She stated Gardner started touching her inappropriately in 2019 throughout classes, starting with lengthy hugs and pats on the again. She stated his conduct progressed, and he started touching her butt in the course of the hugs and requiring her to stretch for prolonged intervals in positions that uncovered her vagina and anus out of her leotard.
She stated round 2020 he started touching her vagina whereas recognizing her throughout workouts. She recalled as soon as telling him to not put his palms there and he claimed it was an accident as a result of her “leotard was slippery.”
Weldon recalled reaching her breaking level with Gardner after a 2021 coaching by which he yelled and threw footwear at her, telling her she’d by no means attain elite standing. She stated she walked out and instructed her mother she needed to give up.
She stated lots of her classmates give up or did not return due to Gardner’s conduct after the fitness center shut down in the course of the pandemic. However whereas he made her hate gymnastics at occasions, she continued coaching when her household moved to Texas after which to Utah. She stated she finally proved Gardner unsuitable by incomes elite standing and a spot on a Division 1 staff.
After information of Gardner’s arrest, Weldon noticed his jail reserving picture within the AP story. She stated she was struck by how a lot heavier and unkempt he appeared.
“He is positively like gone by way of a spiral,” she stated. “I feel he most likely simply had a lot guilt constructed up in him that he form of become that.”
