Report: USA Gymnastics never asked Simone Biles if she'd been abused by Larry Nassar

Nancy Armour | USA TODAY

USA Gymnastics never investigated whether Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles was among the athletes who'd been sexually abused by Larry Nassar, despite being told she had expressed concerns about him, according to a new report.

Biles was one of three gymnasts identified in June 2015 as being uncomfortable with the longtime physician for the U.S. women's team. Yet the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that she was not interviewed by USA Gymnastics' own investigator, and did not learn Nassar was under investigation until after the Rio Olympics, more than a year later.

Only after Biles announced publicly in January 2018 that she, too, had been abused did anyone at USA Gymnastics speak to her about it.

"We continue to struggle with how and why this happened, and every time we hear something new like this, it feels like the harshest of betrayals and it is just too painful for our family to talk about openly," Biles' parents, Ron and Nellie, said in a statement to the WSJ.

Biles declined to be interviewed for the WSJ story.

Rhonda Faehn, then the director of the women's program for USA Gymnastics, said in Congressional testimony that she was alerted in June 2015 that Biles, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman had "concerns" about Nassar's treatments. More than 350 girls and young women have said Nassar sexually abused them, often under the guise of medical treatment.

Nassar is serving an effective life term in prison for federal child pornography charges and sexual abuse charges in Michigan.

Faehn said she relayed that information to Steve Penny, the then-president of USA Gymnastics, and a hand-written note she provided to Congress includes the names of both Biles and Raisman. But Penny, through his lawyers, told the WSJ that Faehn did not give him Biles' name.

Penny did acknowledge knowing by mid-July 2015 that Biles was someone USA Gymnastics "might want to talk to about Nassar." The WSJ cited a July 13, 2015, email to Faehn in which Penny talked about scheduling an interview with Biles with a private investigator hired by USA Gymnastics.

Penny suggested bypassing Biles' parents and coach, since she had turned 18 in March, but Faehn refused. Penny then said he would schedule it himself.

But the interview never happened. The USA Gymnastics investigator spoke with Raisman and, on July 27, 2015, the governing body contacted the FBI. When Penny met with FBI agents the next day, the WSJ said he told them about Raisman, Nichols and McKayla Maroney but did not mention Biles' name.

For reasons that are still unexplained, the FBI did not do anything with the information for almost a year.

The WSJ said Biles met with FBI investigators in the fall of 2016. The WSJ said it was then Biles realized that she, too, had been abused.

Nassar's abuse finally became public in September 2016, when Rachael Denhollander and another athlete, later identified as 2000 Olympic bronze medalist Jamie Dantzscher, told their stories to The Indianapolis Star, a member of the USA TODAY Network.