A book published in Romania once again floods the allegations against Bella Crowley, the former coach of the Romanian and US national team who also coached the athletics legend
Comanche, February 2020
Photo:
AFP
The famous gymnastics coach at La Caroley is facing new allegations that he physically abused and psychologically tortured young athletes who trained under him in the 1960s.
Crowley, who coached in his native Romania, before defecting to the United States in 1981, where he took over the American team, and his wife Martha beat, starved and rejected medical treatment for girls in their training camps.
Among the alleged victims was Nadia Comanche, the protégé of Crowley and the first gymnast to score ten at the Olympics - an unprecedented achievement.
The allegations are in the secret police books of the communist era in Romania, which kept a close eye on the Crowley couple because the state saw before its eyes only the victory of their artistic gymnastics team in those years.
It should be noted that the two are facing US lawsuits and investigations for abuse and their connection to U.S. national team pedophile doctor Larry Nassar who was sentenced to 175 years in prison in 2018 after it was revealed that he abused US national gymnastics.
The new claims appear in a new book - "Nadia si Securitatea", by the Romanian writer Styarl Olaro. In the book, Stearl wrote that even the secret police were sometimes shocked by the treatment of the girls, including Comanche, who received training camps run by Bella. 'The girls ate toothpaste the night before they went to bed - that's how hungry they were. "In some cases, they talked about drinking water from the toilet tank in secret, because they were often not allowed to drink water," it was written. "Some eventually suffered from bulimia.
