NEW YORK • In a rare move used only as a last resort, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) said on Monday that it is moving to strip USA Gymnastics of its power as a national governing body, sending waves of relief through a sport struggling to right itself after the Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal.
USOC chief executive Sarah Hirshland said that her organisation's decision was "not a conclusion that we have come to easily".
By decertifying USAG, the USOC would take control of a national governing body on the grounds that the federation had proved incapable of running itself properly.
In a letter to the gymnastics community, Hirshland said: "You deserve better. This is a situation in which there are no perfect solutions", before adding that the challenges facing USA Gymnastics "are simply more than it is capable of overcoming in its current form".
USA Gymnastics' board of directors issued a statement acknowledging that it had received a letter from the USOC initiating the decertification process and it was "evaluating the best path forward".
It said: "USA Gymnastics' board was seated in June 2018 and inherited an organisation in crisis with significant challenges that were years in the making. In the four months since, (we have) done everything to move this organisation towards a better future."
If USA Gymnastics is decertified, it would be only the fourth time in recent years that the USOC has officially done so.
The USOC decertified the handball body for "a continued pattern of dysfunction", and the taekwondo federation because of financial problems.
Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics team doctor, was jailed up to 175 years in January after pleading guilty to criminal sexual conduct.
NY TIMES