The USA Gymnastics has produced the Fierce Five and the Final Five along with a string of all-around medalists thanks, impart to the efforts of the Karolyis, Marta and Bela, two Romanian couches who have been pretty much in charge of the US Gymnastics team since 2001. While there methods obviously get results, going back to Romanian gymnastics legend Nadia Comaneci, there are some who are questioning, not if the pain is worth the gain, but if the pain is necessary for the gain.

Obviously, training intensively for any sport is going to bring about injuries. Then there’s gymnastics, where the smallest angle can be the difference between a stuck landing and a life in a wheel chair. But not all the injuries are caused by minute differences in take offs or landings.

Injuries in gymnastics are nothing new but as the sport gets safer and safer, with every new spring and more padding being added to the apparatuses, the injuries still continue. So, What gives?

Well former olympic gymnast, who was coached by Marta Karolyi, McKayla Maroney told the world a bit of the not so pretty underbelly to the US gymnastics training regime under the Bela and Marta Karolyi. Maroney, who is most recognizable for her near perfect vault and her ‘not impressed’ face when getting silver in the individual vault while at the London Olympics, officially ended her professional gymnastics career on February 25, 2016 with an interview GymCastic, an online gymnastics podcast, she told the world what her olympic experience was really like.

To begin, McKayla went into the olympic games with a broken toe and a fractured shin. Sure there were alternates that had come with them to London, but her coaches had her ice her foot, out of the media’s view of course, and told her if she could do the vault she could stay on the team. Throughout her time in London she wasn’t allowed to listen to music or talk to her teammates. There were times when she was told to stand facing the wall, not because she’d done anything wrong she told GymCastic that the coaches were just so worried that everybody was going to effect her in a bad way.

McKayla also explained that the environment created by the gymnastics coaches create in training was not one that she could speak up in. Every time she had an ache or a pain her coaches either told her that she needed to lose weight or that she was making it up. In one particular instance she complained about pain in her knees, her coaches told her she needed to lose weight, instead McKayla went to a doctor who told her she had tendinitis one knee and tendonitis (if left untreated could result in amputation) is the other.

Surgeries aside, many of McKayla’s health issues stemmed from her burning out her own body during training. Many people point to issues like nutrition to explain this phenomenon amongst gymnast. Obviously a gymnasts weight does play into this, although coaches who tell gymnasts to lose weight aren’t doing it to be mean. To safely do the things that gymnasts need to do they need to be light or risk putting their bodies under too much stress and making injury even more likely.

It doesn’t help that eating disorders are rife in gymnastics. These girls are constantly wearing leotards and lifting their own weight. Maloney brought up that going into the gym everyday and hating her body contributed to her health problems.

To make matters even worse, the top gymnasts in the country spend time at the gymnastics camp that the Karolyis have created called the Ranch. There gymnasts are surrounded 24/7 by the pressures of their sports. They get only one day off and eat sitting next to their coaches, according to Maroney most of them don’t even bother eating because it’s not worth eating in front of their coaches.

You have to understand that throughout her interview Maroney continually explained that she didn’t enjoy talking about her coaches in a bad light. She explains that she has an enormous amount of respect for them and that they helped her achieve her goal, olympic gold, which is something she will always cherish. She doesn’t blame them, she blames the system and asks the leaders in the sport to take a closer look at some of the issues and to work to find solutions.

There were those who scoffed at McKayla’s interview saying she was influenced by those around her and that’s not really how she feels. There are those who don’t see a problem with the way the American gymnastics team trains since it gets results. That being said, everybody agrees with this next issue that emerged from the gymnastics world.

After doing an investigation the Indy Star published a report that placed USA Gymnastics in the center of a sexual abuse scandal. It also reported that when parents or witnesses came forward to report sexual abuse they were turned away, one official even explaining to a parent that nothing would be done because the organization couldn’t afford for this information to come out. Most of the victims were underage and it is illegal to ignore reports of children being sexually abused.

According to the Star USA Gymnastics is not willing to release the number of sexual abuse allegations they receive each year but it is estimated that more than 50 couches are implicated, all of them filed safely away in someones desk. The Indy Star has filed a motion to get the records released and have not heard back from the judge.

The USA Gymnastics have been under fire for the way train their athletes for a while and now they have an undisputed issue that has been going on for an undetermined amount of time. In a sport that deals mostly with minors neither of these things can be allowed to continue.

Recently Marta Korolyi has annoyed that this Olympics will be her last as the coordinator and coach for USA Gymnastics. It’s time for this organization to take a close look at the way they run things, and choose her successor based on more than projected medal counts.