U.S. Olympic chief resigns after sex abuse scandal, health cited

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DENVER (Reuters) – U.S. Olympic Committee Chief Executive Scott Blackmun is resigning for medical reasons, a classification pronounced on Wednesday, following months of postulated critique stemming from a sex abuse liaison involving former USA Gymnastics alloy Larry Nassar.

The USOC cited in a matter Blackmun’s “ongoing health issues” associated to prostate cancer, for that he has been receiving treatment. It also summarized in a same media recover new reforms directed during safeguarding a athletes from abuse.

The Colorado Springs, Colorado-based USOC, that announced a change reduction than a week after a Winter Olympic Games finished in Pyeongchang, South Korea, had resisted calls to glow Blackmun over a Nassar case. Blackmun, 60, did not attend a Games.

The liaison stirred a whole house of directors during USA Gymnastics, a sport’s U.S. ruling body, to resign, along with a boss and jaunty executive during Michigan State University, where Nassar also worked. It also spawned lawsuits and rapist and polite investigations.

A series of critics, including athletes who pronounced they were abused and dual U.S. senators – Iowa Republican Joni Ernst and New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen – had called for a ouster of Blackmun and USOC house members, accusing them of unwell to act soon on complaints lifted opposite Nassar and fostering a enlightenment of silence.

“Scott Blackmun’s abdication as CEO of a U.S. Olympic Committee is prolonged overdue,” John Manly, a counsel representing 120 of Nassar’s victims, pronounced in a statement. “Under his leadership, USOC has focused scarcely all a efforts on income and medals while a reserve of a athletes has taken a behind seat.”

Shaheen also welcomed a resignation, citing Nassar’s years of abuse. “It’s transparent that a enlightenment during a U.S. Olympic Committee desperately needs to change,” she pronounced in a statement.

Olympic bullion medalist swimmer Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an disciple for womanlike athletes and member of a Committee to Restore Integrity to a USOC, pronounced in a Twitter post Blackmun “didn’t order simple #ChildProtection policies or teach a membership about how to forestall it.”

“His bequest will be that he unsuccessful athletes,” she said.

The USOC matter did not residence either a passionate abuse liaison played a purpose in Blackmun’s departure. His remuneration in 2016 totaled $1.075 million, according to USOC taxation filings.

“Given Scott’s stream health situation, we have jointly concluded it is in a best seductiveness of both Scott and a USOC that we brand new leadership,” USOC Chairman Larry Probst pronounced in a statement.

Nassar pleaded guilty to molesting womanlike athletes underneath a guise of medical diagnosis and was condemned to life in prison.

Authorities contend Nassar victimized some-more than 260 women and girls, including several Olympic bullion medalists. Nearly 200 of them offering testimony during a span of sentencing hearings in Michigan progressing this year.

USOC house member Susanne Lyons, who was selected in Jan to lead a operative organisation to residence problems that a Nassar box had exposed, will offer as behaving CEO while a classification searches for a permanent replacement.

The USOC also pronounced on Wednesday it would boost appropriation for support and conversing for victims as good as investigations into abuse allegations, among other reforms.

Separately, USA Gymnastics pronounced a clamp boss of development, Luan Peszek, has left a classification after scarcely 30 years. Following a extensive army with a team’s communications department, Peszek was a tip director for a women’s module for dual years before presumption her many new post in 2015. Her daughter Samantha was a 2008 Olympic china medalist.

A group spokeswoman, Leslie King, declined to explain a resources of Peszek’s depart or contend when a exit occurred. She pronounced it was not associated to a Nassar scandal.

Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York, Ian Simpson in Washington and David Shepardson in Washington; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Ben Klayman and Paul Tait

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