Olympian Jordyn Wieber Accuses Larry Nassar: Watch Live Stream

LANSING, MI — Gymnast Jordyn Wieber on Friday became the fourth of the 2012 Olympic gold-medal winning “Fierce Five” team to publicly accuse Larry Nassar of sexual molestation. Wieber joined more than 100 survivors of the once prominent USA Gymnastics doctor who are testifying in a marathon sentencing hearing this week in a Michigan courtroom.

Nassar, who is already serving a 60-year sentence on federal pornography charges, pleaded guilty to seven criminal sexual assault charges and faces up to 40 more years in prison. Sentencing was to have taken place Friday, but Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina delayed until next week so more women can testify about the abuse they endured at Nassar’s hands.

Wieber’s Fierce Five teammate, McKayla Maroney testified through a statement read by the prosecutor in the case against Nassar Thursday. Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman, also members of the 2012 team, also have accused Nassar of sexually abusing them under the guise of “medically necessary” treatment.

Nassar has complained to Aquilina that it is mentally tough on him to hear his victims confront him, but the judge offered little sympathy. “Spending four or five days listening to them is minor, considering the hours of pleasure you've had at their expense, ruining their lives," Aquilina said.

As Maroney did Thursday, Wieber placed blame on USA Gymnastics, the U.S. Olympic Committee and Michigan State University, where Nassar was a sports doctor, for allowing the abuse to continue. The extraordinary marathon hearing has resulted in calls for the resignation of MSU’s president Lou Anna Simon.

Also Thursday, USA Gymnastics said it severing its contract with the Karolyi ranch in Texas, the governing body’s National Team Training Center founded in 1981 by Bela and Marta Karolyi, who defected from Romania. The Karolyis have retired from coaching, but leased their ranch to USA Gymnastics.

Here is Wieber’s full statement:

I thought that training for the Olympics would be the hardest thing that I would ever had to do, but in fact the hardest thing that is process that I’m a victim of Larry Nassar. It has caused me to feel shame and confusion, and I have spent months trying to think back on my experience and wonder how I didn’t even know this was happening to me and how I became so brainwashed by Larry and everyone at USA Gymnastics, both whom I thought were supposed to be on my side.

I started seeing Larry Nassar at the age of 8 in my hometown of Lansing. He was known as the best gymnastics doctor in the world. Everyone in my club, on the U.S. national team and across the country saw Larry, and everyone said the same thing. He was a miracle worker, and he could fix just about anything. I was treated by Larry for any and all of my injuries from ages 8 ’til I was 18, and it wasn’t long before he had gained my trust. He became a safe person of sorts, and to my teenage self he appeared to be the good guy in an environment that was intense and restricting.

He would try to advise me on how to deal with the stresses of training or my coaches. He would bring us food and coffee at the Olympics when we were too afraid to eat too much in front of our coaches. I didn’t know that these were all grooming techniques that he used to manipulate me and brainwash me to trusting him.

When I was 14 years old, I tore my hamstring in my right leg. This is when he started performing the procedure that we are all now familiar with. I would cringe at how uncomfortable it felt. He did it time after time, appointment after appointment, convincing me that it was helping my hamstring injury. And the worst part was that I had no idea he was sexually abusing me for his own benefit. I knew it felt strange, but he was the national team doctor. Who was I to question his treatments, or even more, risk my chance at making the Olympic team or being chosen to compete internationally. And after all, he was recommended by the national team staff, and he treated us monthly at all of our national team camps. I even talked to my teammates, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney, about this treatment, and how uncomfortable it made us feel. None of us really understood it. After I made the Olympic team, I suffered a stress fracture in my right shin. It was extremely painful to tumble and land using my legs, but I fought through the pain because it was the Olympics, and I knew it would be probably my only shot.

Our bodies were all hanging by a thread when we were in London. Who was the doctor that USAG sent to keep us healthy and help us get through? The doctor that was our abuser. The doctor that is a child molester. Because of my shin, I couldn’t train without being in extreme pain, and it affected the number of routines I could do to prepare before the competition. And, ultimately, it made me feel less prepared than I should have been. I didn’t qualify to the all-around competition, and I went through a dark time right before we won the team gold.

Now, I question everything about that injury and the medical treatment I received. Was Larry even doing anything to help my pain? Was I getting the proper medical care, or was he only focused on which one of us he was going to prey on next? What does he think about when he massaged my sore muscles every day? Now I question everything.

To this day, I still don’t know how he could have been allowed to do this for so long. My teammates and I were subjected to his medical care every single month at the national-team training center in Texas. He was the only male allowed to be present in the athlete dorm rooms to do whatever treatments he wanted. He was allowed to treat us in hotel rooms alone without any supervision. He took photos of us during training and whenever else he wanted. Nobody was protecting us from being taken advantage of. Nobody was even concerned whether or not we were being sexually abused. I was not protected, and neither were my teammates.

My parents trusted USA Gymnastics and Larry Nassar to take care of me, and we were betrayed by both. And now the lack of accountability from USAG, USOC and Michigan State have caused me and many other girls to remain shameful, confused and disappointed.

I am angry with myself for not recognizing the abuse, and that’s something I’m struggling with today. But even thought I am a victim, I do not and will not live my life as one. I am an Olympian. Despite being abused, I worked so hard and managed to achieve my goal. But I want everyone, especially the media, to know that despite my athletic achievements, I am one of over 140 women and survivors whose story is important. Our pain is all the same, and our stories are all important. And now the people who are responsible need to accept responsibility for the pain they have caused me and the rest of the women who have been abused. Larry Nassar is accountable. USA Gymnastics is accountable. The U.S. Olympic Committee is accountable. My teammates and friends have been through enough, and now it’s time for change because the current and future gymnasts do not deserve to live in anxiety, fear or be unprotected like I was.

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP