"We were let down and we owe an explanation."
It is with these words that young gymnast Simone Biles on Wednesday condemned the inaction of sports authorities and the federal police in the face of sexual violence committed by Larry Nassar, former doctor of the American women's team, on young athletes during 20 years.
Like her, other American gymnasts such as McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman spoke before a Senate committee tasked with looking into the "failures" of the investigation.
Larry Nassar, 58, is serving a life sentence after being sentenced to several heavy sentences in 2017 and 2018 for sexual assault on more than 250 gymnasts, most of them minors.
The violence was committed within the gymnastics federation, at Michigan State University and at a gymnastics club where he worked in Lansing.
Read alsoSexual abuse: Larry Nassar, the monster of the gyms, will end his days in prison
A report from the Department of Justice's general inspection was very harsh on the local FBI office in Indianapolis, where the boss of the gymnastics federation first reported the charges against the osteopath in July 2015. The investigation was closed in September and it took another report, eight months later, for a new investigation to be successful.
“I hold Larry Nassar accountable and I hold accountable an entire system that allowed and perpetrated these abuses, the American Gymnastics Federation and the United States Olympic Committee,” said Simone Biles, a huge multi-gold medalist champion.
"The FBI took 14 months to contact me"
McKayla Maroney, for her part, focused her anger on the local FBI office which had collected her testimony containing very specific details of the assaults. "Not only did the FBI not do an investigation, but when (federal agents) finally made a report 17 months later, they made false statements about what I said," the accused said. 25-year-old ex-gymnast, who was assaulted when she was 13.
By falsifying her testimony, "these FBI agents committed a crime," she said, denouncing the absence of sanctions taken by the Department of Justice which, according to her, "refused to prosecute" these police officers.
Aly Raisman, who revealed to have been assaulted from 2010, denounced Larry Nassar in 2015 to the Federation.
However, "the FBI took 14 months to contact me despite my numerous requests to testify," insisted the 27-year-old girl.
VIDEO.
Simone Biles: "I have to be medically monitored every day"
The Senate committee is also due to hear from the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, and the head of the General Inspectorate of the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz. This scandal, the biggest in American sports history, came to light in the summer of 2016 following an article in the Indianapolis Star daily.