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Olympic gymnasts shared opening statements before Congress on Wednesday, September 15, as the Senate investigated the FBI’s response to allegations of sexual abuse against former team doctor Larry Nassar, now a convicted sex offender.

Sitting before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning, McKayla Maroney, a gold medalist with the 2012 Olympic gymnastics team, read a prepared statement: “As most of you are probably aware, I was molested by the US Gymnastics National Team and Olympic team doctor Larry Nassar. And in actuality, he turned out to be more of a pedophile than he was a doctor.”

Maroney said she told the FBI about the abuse in the summer of 2015, and that it went unreported for more than a year before being misrepresented.

“After telling my entire story of abuse to the FBI in the summer of 2015, not only did the FBI not report my abuse, but when they eventually documented my report, 17 months later, they made entirely false claims about what I said,” Maroney said.

“This was very clear, cookie-cutter pedophilia and abuse, and this is important because I told the FBI all of this and they chose to falsify my report and to not only minimize my abuse but silence me yet again,” Maroney said.

“They wanted to cover it up. USA Gymnastics in concert with the FBI and the Olympic Committee were working together to conceal that Larry Nassar was a predator,” Maroney said.

Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison and was accused of sexual abuse by more than 150 women and girls. Credit: CSPAN via Storyful