The Survivor

Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar molested hundreds of athletes throughout his career. Now the woman who may have been his first victim reveals how a domineering coach created a climate of fear that enabled sexual abuse

- Abigail Pesta

Sara Teristi saw the making of a monster.

She watched a man transform from doctor to predator, starting decades ago when he gained access to a gym full of little girls. She was one of those girls. She may have been his very first target.

She first met Larry Nassar—the most prolific known sex criminal in American sports history—at a gym in Michigan in late 1988. She was a young gymnast in a vulnerable state, she says, having been emotionally trampled by her hard- driving coach, John Geddert, a man who made her feel worthless. Nassar, who was volunteering as team doctor, zoomed in on her right away.

Now in her 40s, Sara tells me her story in a quiet courtyard of an art museum near her home in Raleigh, N.C. She is sharing her experience publicly for the first time, much of it recently pieced together after repressing the memories for decades, and she does not want to tell this tale in her house, around her two young sons. She remembers how Geddert created a culture of fear at the gym— shoving her, berating her, mocking her body— and how she lost her sense of self. She recalls that he watched while Nassar sexually abused her.

Today, she wears a metal knee brace from old gymnastics injuries. Physical pain is a part of her everyday life. Then there are the psychological scars. “People don’t understand how many broken girls it takes to produce an elite athlete,” she says, delivering the haunting words with the perfect posture of a gymnast. “A coach can easily go through 300 girls, or more.”