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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(132,400 posts) Tue Aug 19, 2025, 02:24 PM Aug 2025

Years after abuse reports, ex-coach at renowned US gymnastics academy is arrested by FBI

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The U.S. gymnastics world was only just recovering from a devastating sexual abuse scandal when a promising young coach moved from Mississippi to Iowa to take a job in 2018 at an elite academy known for training Olympic champions.

Liang “Chow” Qiao, the owner of Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, thought highly enough of his new hire, Sean Gardner, to put him in charge of the club's premier junior event and to coach some of its most promising girls.

But four years later, Gardner was gone from Chow’s with little notice.

USA Gymnastics, the organization rocked by the Larry Nassar sex-abuse crisis that led to the creation of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, had been informed by the watchdog group that Gardner was placed on its website's banned list and was suspended from all contact with gymnasts.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/years-abuse-reports-ex-coach-040721538.html

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Years after abuse reports, ex-coach at renowned US gymnastics academy is arrested by FBI (Original Post) Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin Aug 2025 OP

Finally! obamanut2012 Aug 2025 #1

I was a soccer referee for many years. Old Crank Aug 2025 #2

obamanut2012

(29,148 posts)

1. Finally!

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Tue Aug 19, 2025, 02:33 PM

Aug 2025

Old Crank

(6,608 posts)

2. I was a soccer referee for many years.

Reply to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

Tue Aug 19, 2025, 02:40 PM

Aug 2025

For one group I was fingerprinted yearly to see if I was a child predator. Because we had contact with the children.

Just crazy. A referee for a youth game shows up 15 to 30 minutes before game time. Coaches, players and parents are already there. We are in the field for the game and either leave after the handshakes or start getting ready for the next game in 15 minutes. We were never alone near any players.

But coaches are. In the one league when my daughter played there were usually 2 or 3 parents at practice. The coaches wanted that if only incase of injury.

These groups are going to have to change their ways to protect the players.

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