Two of the sport's stars have told ITV News they received shocking treatment from their coaches from a very young age.
Catherine is just one of many young women who are starting to speak out about the culture within British Gymnastics when they were growing up.
A picture is emerging of a generation of former UK athletes, badly damaged by their experiences.
Prompted by ‘Athlete A’, a Netflix documentary on the US gymnastics sex abuse scandal, dozens of elite British gymnasts are coming forward to talk about the abuse they suffered at the hands of their coaches.
Now young women, not vulnerable girls, they have found a voice.
A cursory search of social media is revealing and the experiences highlighted are not limited to a couple of “bad apple” coaches at a couple of clubs.
A catalogue of horror stories is there for all to see.
One former British gymnast writes: “I spent most of my gymnastics career being way more scared of my elite coaches, than the moves I was practicing.”
Another posted: “I’ve witnessed girls being shamed, called fat, ugly, stupid, dragged across floors by their hair, picked up by the leotard and thrown to the floor.”
One athlete remembers “constant anxiety about not being good enough, a long battle with an eating disorder, nightmares and injuries that plagued me daily because I wasn’t believed”, and a gymnast’s mother who said “a certain club my daughter went to was run like a concentration camp by someone who had no morals whatsoever.”
Lisa Mason, an Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medallist, has been inundated with messages in the past couple of weeks.
Every contact comes with another sorry story of a gymnast whose life has been damaged by their experiences in the gym.
She says she’s even heard from current elite gymnasts who are too terrified to speak publicly because they believe if they do, they’ll be dropped from the British team ahead of the Tokyo Olympics next year.
They’re suffering in silence.
“A couple have said to me they want to be more vocal but they’re concerned about their position.”
“The Olympics is next year and we don’t want to rock the boat and upset the people who make those decisions.”
“They’re going to be ready when they’re ready to speak out but there are a lot of stories from current gymnasts that are ready to go, but now is not the right time.”
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