Windsor gymnastics coach suspended for 2 years following complaints of abusive coaching | CBC News

WARNING: This article contains details of abuse.

The governing body for gymnastics in Ontario has suspended the membership of Windsor gymnastics teacher Diane Deslippe following complaints of abusive coaching.

The two-year suspension was announced on Tuesday in a press release that said Gymnastics Ontario launched an investigation on May 14, 2022, placing Deslippe “under immediate interim suspension.”

According to a lawyer representing Deslippe’s former employer, Rose City Gymnastics Club, Deslippe resigned in September of 2022. The club declined to comment.

CBC Windsor also attempted to reach Deslippe but has not yet been successful.

In the news release, Gymnastics Ontario said it received reports of athletes training through injury, Deslippe yelling at athletes and coaches — which she called using her “gym voice” — crying athletes and fear of speaking up.

“I find [Deslippe], consciously or unconsciously, exploited her power to put her ideas of what is required to perform ahead of athlete health and safety,” read an excerpt from the discipline panel’s decision in the release.

‘It was so beyond just yelling’

Victoria Grandi, a former athlete and coach at Rose City Gymnastics, was part of the complaint against Deslippe and worked alongside her.

“It was so beyond just yelling and anything that would be considered a normal or appropriate way to talk to children or even to other coaches,” she said.

Grandi said Deslippe’s behaviour made her quit coaching, and although she said she won’t go back to it, she knows other people who will.

“There’s a bunch of people still in the area who want to go back into coaching, knowing now that she’s no longer there,” she said.

She said she advocated for Deslippe to get a lifetime ban from coaching.

Yelling in coaching ‘normalized’

Gymnast Abby Spadafora, who is part of an advocacy group fighting abuse called Gymnasts for Change Canada, said it was not shocking to hear the news, but is glad Gymnastics Ontario took “some action.”

CBC Windsor reached out to Gymnastics Ontario, but the organization declined an interview.

Spadafora said yelling in coaching has become normalized and people need to “start calling it what is is … verbal abuse.”

She said it’s been “heartbreaking,” seeing the recent reckoning in sports when it comes to abuse.

“But, as a survivor myself, is validating,” she said.

In late March, NDP MP for Windsor West Brian Masse tabled a petition calling on the Liberal government to undertake an independent public inquiry into widespread abuse at every level of Canadian sport.

The petition was signed by over 700 people across Canada and came after a months-long reckoning that has laid bare the extent of abuse in Canadian sport.

Spadafora has gone public with allegations that she was abused in gymnastics starting at the age of seven.

“To know that children are being abused just because they love a sport is heartbreaking … we need to see real change,” she said.