A variety of forms of abuse have been reported in gymnastics, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. The gymnastics community in Australia has been impacted by a long-standing history of abuse, and the failure of authorities to take appropriate action when concerns were raised leading to the protection of the abuse at a systemic level.
In , the Women's Artistic Gymnastics WAG program at the Australian Institute of Sport AIS faced accusations of abuse, with Coach Mark Calton being accused of hitting a 10 year old gymnast, with two other girls stating that their coach used emotional abuse calling them "fat" and "ugly". This subsequent report, known as the Opie report, claimed that the physical assault of the 10 year old gymnast by her coach had resulted after the gymnast "provoked Calton into losing his self-control", but ultimately did not find he had struck her with Opie recommending counselling for the coach - not the gymnast - and dismissed the emotional abuse as the terms "fat" and "ugly" were often use in high-performance training centres such as the AIS environment.
Ultimately, the Opie report concluded "No systematic or widespread abuse of AIS female gymnasts has been found to occur at any time.
Major change at the AIS is not necessary. However, this inquiry has been criticised for being constrained by a narrow framework that did not address the broader issues present in the sport, resulting in the report providing recommendations that treated the symptoms rather than tackling the underlying problems and further legitimising and approving of the activities occurring that had upset parents and athletes. In July , gymnastics coach Geoffery Robert Dobbs was formally sentenced for life in jail with no prospect of parole on charges of molesting and producing child sexual abuse material of 62 girls aged from 12 months to 15 years old between and In , the Australian Institute of Sport AIS responded to enquiries by the ABC to confirm the suspension of husband and wife coaches, Sasha and Olga Belooussov, for an month period for the verbal abuse of a gymnast.
This suspension had remained unreported for eight years due to the complaint handling process by Gymnastics Australia GA , which had meant that those involved, including the verbally abused gymnast and GA, were barred from speaking due to confidentiality provisions. During January , the gymnastics world was exposed to the horrors of abuse in gymnastics as the Larry Nassar abuse trial played out publicly, raising awareness of child safety in sports, particularly within gymnastics, with victim Aly Raisman urging sporting bodies to ensure safeguards to ensure the mistakes of the United States were not repeated.
