Transparency shift in youth sport abuse cases exposes gaps in safeguarding efforts

As US sports authorities increase transparency with weekly public updates on banned coaches, investigations reveal persistent gaps allowing abusive adults to remain active with young athletes, highlighting the need for deeper organisational reforms.

The Washington Post and ProPublica have widened their examination of abuse in youth sport, asking athletes, parents and officials to come forward with accounts of coaches who were allowed to stay around children even after misconduct findings or warning signs. The appeal comes as the U.S. Center for SafeSport tries to make its disciplinary system more visible by issuing public weekly notices of newly banned or restricted adults, rather than relying on families to search a database only if they already knew a name.

That shift, first outlined by the Associated Press in July, is intended as a transparency measure rather than a new sanctions regime. SafeSport has long kept a public Centralized Disciplinary Database, but the service was of limited use to a parent who had no reason to suspect a particular coach. Under the new approach, the centre says it will circulate weekly updates on additions to the list, including cases that went to arbitration and reached a decision, to national governing bodies, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the media.

For the reporting team, the most urgent question is whether public records and safeguarding rules are doing enough once a coach has been flagged. The journalists have said they want to hear about adults who continued working with children after appearing on the SafeSport list, and about sports such as basketball, where SafeSport has less influence than it does in much of the Olympic system. Their work has already found that eight coaches banned by SafeSport were still active with children under the Amateur Athletic Union, which said it does not comment on individual cases but is “committed to protecting its athletes through comprehensive protection policies overseen by our Compliance Department.”

One of the clearest examples of the wider failures alleged by families is the case of Sean Gardner, the former gymnastics coach at Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, Iowa. In civil suits filed in Polk County in December 2025, two gymnasts accused USA Gymnastics and SafeSport of failing to stop Gardner from preying on girls despite repeated complaints about his conduct.

According to the lawsuits, both bodies were told in December 2017 about Gardner’s “inappropriate and abusive behaviors” at a Mississippi gym, including hugging and kissing girls and other grooming conduct. The plaintiffs say the organisations failed to investigate properly, revoke his coaching credentials, report him to law enforcement or take other protective action. They allege that failure allowed Gardner to move to Iowa in 2018, where they say he subjected them to physical, emotional and sexual abuse until they eventually left the sport.

The litigation also names Liang “Chow” Qiao, the former Chinese gymnast who founded the Iowa club, and Liwen Zhuan, who helps run it, along with related family companies. Bangor Daily News’s version of the AP report noted that Qiao opened Chow’s in 1998 and coached Olympic gold medallists Shawn Johnson and Gabby Douglas, underscoring how close the case came to the top tier of American gymnastics. The suits are described as the first civil claims in a scandal that surfaced after AP reporting and Gardner’s FBI arrest in August. SafeSport, for its part, said its 2022 temporary suspension of Gardner, which was published on its online database, was the only reason he was barred from coaching young athletes before his arrest.

Those details help explain why the Post and ProPublica are not only seeking cases involving listed coaches, but also trying to understand how abusive adults win the trust of parents and clubs in the first place. SafeSport’s sanctions apply across Olympic and Paralympic sport, from elite competition to the grassroots, yet the AP noted that the disciplinary database is only a snapshot in time and is neither a criminal nor a civil proceeding. In other words, inclusion on the list can be an important warning, but absence from it is not proof that no risk exists.

The centre’s July move to publicise names more aggressively may make that warning system harder to ignore. Even so, the reporting request and the Gardner lawsuits point to a deeper problem: visibility alone cannot protect young athletes if organisations are slow to act, if complaints are discounted, or if a coach can simply move between teams, gyms or governing structures. The investigation is now looking for fresh evidence of exactly those gaps.