Sitting in a hotel’s dark bar, Raisman went into something of a trance as she recalled entering the Lansing courtroom and seeing Nassar, clad in a gray prison jumpsuit, in the witness box. When she walked to the lectern, she was surprised to feel his eyes following her. In fact he had gazed at each woman as she spoke. His expression shifted with each individual: sometimes he exhibited fear, disgust, or intense anger; with others, he was woeful, even weeping uncontrollably.

Nassar watched Raisman with a vacant stare. “The first second, when he looked back at me, I felt a little shaky,” she recalled. But hearing the quiet sobs of other victims sitting in rows behind her, she remembered that she was a leader. “I thought, I have to be strong, because this is bigger than myself,” she said. “Then I looked down at my paper, and I realized Larry has no power.” In a loud voice that projected across the courtroom, she said, “I am no longer that little girl you met in Australia where you first began grooming and manipulating. . . . Imagine feeling like you have no power and no voice. Well, you know what, Larry, I have both power and voice, and I am only beginning to just use them.”

Gymnasts were told they had misunderstood Nassar: he was trying to heal them, to help make them fly.

In recent months, Raisman has also assumed the role of captain in this fight. Along with a small army of former Olympians, including Jamie Dantzscher and Jordyn Wieber, she hopes that by speaking out about the factors that led to Nassar’s abuse they will ultimately engineer a vast redesign of her sport’s culture. They are a new kind of American hero.

When I asked if she would compete in the 2020 Games, Raisman waved away the question. The win she wanted now was not Olympic gold but an eradication of sexual abuse and also of the sport’s psychologically and physically abusive aspects. “Right now the most important thing is doing as much as I can to make change,” she explained. “What I can say is that what I’m doing is taking every ounce of energy I have. It’s been empowering, and I’m proud to be in this position, but it’s very exhausting. I still feel like I’m in training, almost.” She gave me a firm stare and issued what seemed like a proclamation: “We are on a roll.”

The institutions that Nassar was involved with have announced mass resignations, including USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny and its entire board of directors; the president of the United States Olympic Committee, Scott Blackmun; and the president, athletic director, and other employees of Michigan State University, where Nassar was an assistant professor of osteopathy and practiced at a sports-medicine clinic. Olympic sponsors such as AT&T, Hershey, Kellogg, and Procter & Gamble have withdrawn their support of USA Gymnastics.

And yet we are still in the early days of accountability for this tragedy. Congress is asking those in positions of authority to come forward with information about who knew what when. The Olympic Committee has hired an outside law firm to conduct an investigation, but Raisman has been loudly questioning whether this investigation, which will allow employees to withhold information on advice of their lawyers, is enough. Settlement talks between Michigan State and the victims—most of whom are represented by John Manly, an attorney who fought the Catholic Church on behalf of young parishioners molested by priests—have concluded. Michigan State will settle with victims for $500 million. U.S.A.G. and the U.S.O.C. may ultimately settle as well, making the total sum much more than Penn State paid to resolve cases involving coach and serial pedophile Jerry Sandusky.

A jumble of legal issues will determine how the Nassar cases are resolved: medical-malpractice liability, and whether insurance companies will try to revoke coverage of U.S.A.G. on the basis of negligence. “Honestly, the Nassar situation may be more complicated than the Kennedy assassination,” says Peter Lake, the director of Stetson University’s Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy. “You could end up with something like the Warren Commission report—it’s that complex.” He elucidates that “the issue is ‘When do you come to consciousness that there is a pattern and something needs to be done?’ I have a feeling we are going to end up with a fairly controversial narrative over exactly when things congealed in a way that someone should have done something.”

Lauren Margraves and Madison Rae Margraves, flanked by their parents, make statements at a hearing; USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny in 2011; Jordyn Wieber at Nassar’s hearing. Clockwise from top, by Rebecca Cook/Reuters, by Bob Levey/Getty Images, by Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters.

But Raisman’s and her teammates’ crusade could have another impact: What if the changes they want mean that the U.S. won’t win medals? “I think there’s a way to make Olympic champions that’s not abusive,” said Wieber, in an interview in the days before she testified in Congress. “Maybe we will go down a little bit in the rankings before we go up just because of the lack of organization and all the things that are going on. The next couple years are going to be stressful for USA Gymnastics and the athletes. . . . But I cannot believe that you have to be sexually, emotionally, and verbally abused to win Olympic medals. I just cannot believe that.”