“As predator George Gibney is extradited: what really happened” … Full Text From Ireland’s Village Magazine
August 17, 2025“Coach abuse knows no borders” — at Ireland’s Village Magazine
August 28, 2025by Irvin Muchnick
Michael Phelps, the all-time swimming great, issued a public rebuke of the leadership of USA Swimming following the American team’s tepid performance at the recent world championships. The question is, what, if anything, does this mean for reckoning and redress of the persistent and widespread problem of coach sexual abuse.
Bully for Phelps for speaking out about anything in adulthood. This beats just sitting back and doing commercial endorsements and curating his legend.
I’m also confident that he’s a smarter politician than I, along with being a superior swimmer. If this is some kind of tacit opening – in intention or effect – for him and others to talk about the abuse issue, then it’s a good thing.
At the same time, I feel that Bryan Armen Graham of Britain’s Guardian struck the right note when he wrote:
“Notably, Phelps’s broadside does not directly address the most damaging area of USA Swimming’s recent history: its handling of sexual abuse, harassment and athlete safeguarding. Earlier this year, incoming CEO Chrissi Rawak resigned after just nine days when the organization learned of an undisclosed SafeSport complaint against her from her coaching days. The US Center for SafeSport itself, which handles such allegations, has been in an ongoing state of turmoil: its own chief executive was dismissed amid scrutiny of hiring practices, including an investigator who himself was later charged with multiple sex crimes, including rape, sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution. Survivors have reported retraumatization through flawed investigations, and their trust in both SafeSport and USA Swimming’s vetting processes remains fragile at best, if not fractured beyond repair.”
This corner has written extensively about how Phelps’s own home base, the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, was a major precinct of abuse concerns. In 2012, NBAC’s founder Murray Stephens suddenly disappeared after allegations by a swimmer from decades earlier. My reporting partner Tim Joyce sought comment from Debbie Phelps, Michael’s mother and a public schools official, for comment. She hung up the phone on Tim.
In 2017, Michael told The Daily Beast, ““If [sexual harassment or assault] goes on in the swimming world, I don’t know about it.”
If Michael Phelps, in 2025, is at the starting block for a convoluted change of heart on this score, then I say: Jump on in, the water’s fine.
