Athlete A

Reporters at the Indianapolis Star, working on a series about how sexual abuse gets covered up in schools, receive an email: the same thing is happening in gymnastics. The man they trace is Larry Nassar, for many years the team doctor for USA Gymnastics. After the series is published, more than five hundred women come forward. The documentary's title comes from a file name. To protect her identity, the gymnast who first reported Nassar to the federation in 2015 was recorded in the paperwork as Athlete A; her name is Maggie Nichols. The film does not stop at Nassar. Its real target is the institution: management that sat on complaints for months, a camp system that separated athletes from their families, and a training culture that kept girls permanently hungry and afraid. Steve Penny, the federation's chief executive at the time, is central to the story. Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk directed. It runs 104 minutes and went out on Netflix on 24 June 2020. Who it is for: anyone who wants investigative-journalism documentary and stories about sporting institutions. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot approach the subject. The abuse of child athletes is at the centre of the telling, and the film discusses it directly.