Simone Biles' emotional testimony about the abuses she suffered

On Wednesday September 15, Simone Biles addressed the Senate Committee regarding the case against the FBI's inaction towards Larry Nassar for his abuse of more than 300 gymnasts. The FBI is being investigated because the victims of Larry Nassar want to know why the agency took so long to take action against Nassar. Simone Biles, one of many of Nassar's victims, addressed the Senate: “To be clear, I blame Larry Nassar, but I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse.”

Simone Biles' testimony to the Committee was heartbreaking, and it was nearly impossible not to shed any tears. However, the gymnast is insistent and unafraid, calling out the FBI, the Gymnastics Federation, and the Olympic Committee for their part in this horrendous story, for not acting on time against Nasser.

Simone Biles began by saying to the Committee: "I am a survivor." And she added: "I don’t want another young gymnast, Olympic athlete, or any individual to experience the horror that I and hundreds of others have endured before, during, and continuing to this day, in the wake of the Larry Nassar abuse."

Both Simone Biles and her fellow gymnasts that were summoned to speak before the Committee insist that the FBI did not pay heed to their complaints about Nassar. According to various testimonies, the agents that were in charge of the case seemed to want Nassar to be exonerated.

One of the most shocking details of the gymnasts' accounts was provided by the athlete McKayla Maroney. She told an FBI agent that Nassar touched her private parts for hours when she was 13 years old and the agent replied, "Is that all?"

Gymnast Aly Raisman found the same attitude in the FBI, saying the agent she spoke to “diminished the significance of my abuse and made me feel my criminal case wasn’t worth pursuing.”

This is the question that Simone Biles and her colleagues have repeated t the Committee. And, as happens many times in this type of case, it gives the impression that it was more important that the gymnastics team win medals than the well-being of the athletes.

The director of the FBI, Christopher A. Wray, has been in charge of apologizing to the abused gymnasts. Apologies which he gave before the same Committee to which the survivors have raised their voices.

The gymnasts who testified to the Senate Committee showed great courage and valour, an overwhelming feeling that permeated the room where the testimonies took place.

A curious detail about the hearing: Simone Biles, the star of the Olympic team, was the one to open the investigation into Nassar's abuses, yet no one from the FBI spoke to her.

This Senate Committee will have to determine, among other things, if there is any responsibility (including criminal) held by the team of FBI investigators that handled the case and the different institutions that participated in it.

Gymnast and abuse survivor Maggie Nichols has summed up the objective of the hearing in her statement to the Senate Committee: "We ask that you do what is in your power to ensure those that engaged in wrongdoing are held accountable under the law."

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, in view of the testimonies, has even said that "more people should be in jail" for this matter.

Although almost all the data was already known, the statements in the Senate have caused the scandal of the Larry Nassar abuse to resurface before the public opinion. And everything looks absolutely clear.

In the case of Nassar, that old culture was fulfilled in which abuses were covered if the person who committed them was a supposedly a "respectable" person.

But Simone Biles and the rest of her teammates have shown that their talent for sports is matched by their bravery. And that no abuse should ever go unpunished.