us on twitter. >> behind the scenes many say they're enduring and psychological and sexual abuses at the hands of their coaches. we discuss the dark side. omar is in tonight, a digital producer. he'll bring in the live questions and comments throughout the show. there's a tendency to look at the olympic environment and think it's structured and disciplined and very safe and

there are a number of athletes saying it's anything but. >> certainly not. a lot of interesting thoughts from our community about the relationship between athletes and coaches what qualifies as abusive behavior. a coach's job is to maximize and jennifer says coachers are like mentors or psychologists. they can create chaos or heal you into success. rachel, when we asked her thoughts about coach abuse in 140 characters or less, impossible. i've seen it all from verbal to physical to mental abuse. amy, says it's difficult to see many young girls and boys sacrifice for winning and sponsorship money and so on. tweet us using the hashtag on the screen right now. >> going for gold comes with sacrifices for sure, but some athletes say physical, psychological and sexual abuse

of the skating. elite athletes are coming forward with allegations. a little over a year ago 19 speed skaters including five olympic medalists filed complaints where coaches hit athletes, threw chairs and publicly and publicly shamed female skaters for being what one coach called fat. a few national governing bodies like usa swimming have stepped up to declare zero tolerance for some behavior, but sod advocates question whether inconsistent guidelines are strong enough to protect olympic hopefuls. they say winning it all cost mentality has taken it over making athletes less likely to report abuse. joining us with an inside look is katherine star, two time olympian and current president of safe for athletes, a support network. in chicago john little, an attorney that handles many sexual abuse cases for olympic athletes and a doctor who has worked extensively with high

performance and olympic athletes that face these abuses. welcome to the stream. coaching push athletes to try harder. that's their job. they yell and put you through grueling workouts. that's amplified with the olympics at stake. at what point does hard-core tough coaching become abusive? >> one of the things about being an elite athlete is you excel on your own, and it's having a balanced relationship between your coach and yourself. if you're in a dynamic where a coach is saying they made you, it's all their pushing, then you've really lost your -- the equality in that relationship. then you create a dynamic that's extremely dysfunctional and an extremely abusive environment. >> talk about what that abusive environment was like for you. >> well, i mean, for me the

abuse was psychologically abusive and mentally abusive, and i had to deal with -- my family, my father was an amazing man, and how he supported me as a swimmer was absolutely amazing. to go to him with my -- you know, like you're supposed to go to your parents with your pain and your hurt to help you through that, and you know, to sort of have their way of helping you sort of like don't quit. i have a letter i found from 30 years ago from my father that specif specifically says i'm sorry for your sadness, but you need to learn to get along. he meant well, but there wasn't a vehicle in a way to express any of that hurt or psychological abuse. so you sort of stayed with it, and your peers, your, you know, 14, 15-year-old teammates are

the ones who help you through your struggles, because you're in the same place. >> i'm sorry. finish katherine. >> no, it's all good. >> john, you're an attorney that deals with a lot of these elite athletes when they run into these sorts of situations. katherine made a good point, we're talking about kids sometimes, 13 to 17-year-olds. give me a sense of the egregious sorts of abuse allegations your clients have brought to you. >> first of all, katherine said it the best when she said that the coach -- his ego, he shouldn't say things like i made you. i'm responsible for your success. the athlete is ultimately responsible for their parents. their parents' dna is the single largest contributor to the success. on that note, i agree with her. i've seen instances where coaches have locked athletes in hotel rooms overseas, underage

athletes because they did not perform well. they jarred the door so the athlete couldn't get out. i've seen coaches abuse athletes at the olympic training center in an environment you would think would be safe. i've seen all kinds of, you know, throwing things at kids, hitting kids. what you saw in the speed skating incidences from last year where coaches were actually assaulting athletes. the sad part is when you look at what happened with speed skating, the national governing body failed to act. what we have in olympics sports from olympians down to little kids participating in sports in the u.s. right now is there's no accountable. you have an environment like katherine talked about where coaches have no one to answer to. they can do what they will, and as long as they're successful on the playing field, there will be no scrutiny to their methods. >> i want to get to the accountability and failure to

act in a second. mitch, do these abuses generally concentrate among a particular age or gender? >> i think that's probably most important is considering the developmental age of the children and the younger athletes involved. olympic athletes have a wide range of ages and developmental stages they're going through. i think that it would be a mistake to assume that a governing body is going to be able to enforce the rules the way they need to be done. accountability has to fall on all participants that are involved. they expect the athletes to come forward, and that's unrealistic. coaches identify what other coaches are doing. certainly the governing bodies matter, but parents have to be more involved and not just hand over their children to coaches and assume everything is going to be copy settic. >> i agree with that, if i can jump in here a second. i agree that parents do have a responsibility, but the problem that we have currently in u.s. olympic sports, which for the record would be 42 sports from

soccer to football to field hockey, any number of sports, what we have is a system where abuses and allegations are not documented, or if they're documented, they're kept from parents and clubs at the lower level so that people don't know the new man that moved into town and is the new coach of the field hockey program or the tae kwon do program has a history from new jersey or has a history from indianapolis. those kind of secret lists that are currently kept prevent parents from having all the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about who is, in fact, working with their children. >> about where this line is drawn between what is encouraging coaching and where that line crosses into abuse. we have interesting reactions on that. we have a fellow here that says the line is where players feel they're being attacked rather than being coached. he goes on to say there are lines like physical harm, verbal

abuse, and neglect et cetera. angel says there is definitely a line especially with kids, but that line will vary from person to person. katherine, given the fact there's a subjective angle to the emotional abuse, do you think that makes it difficult to set specific standards about what kind of behavior coaches can engage in and what they cannot? >> i think you have to put the -- you got to allow athletes to have a voice, and you know, i'm an advocate for if it feels wrong, it is wrong. an athlete's got to be able to say, you know, i'm not okay with this. there's just no room for that. if we have such a system, especially in gymnastics, where the next athlete is going to step in line. i feel like one of the -- so that's where you continue to abuse yourself and not feel like you can speak up because you're not accommodated. we live in fear and intimidation environment. we need to change that to

inspiration and empowerment and allow our athletes to be vocal about how they can succeed within who they are. allow them to share that part of their experience. you know, i just think there's way too much power, and because they're minors, they're negates and not considered as having any value to the conversation. yet, these are children who have excelled beyond belief and even just being in sports in general, just participation. we want to teach young athletes to communicates in a way helpful for them to improve in all aspects. >> katherine, as you know, it's very disturbing and not uncommon for psychological abuse to lead to sexual abuse, which is more likely among elite athletes. find out why after the break. until then keep tweeting "the stream."

>> hello there, welcome to the news hour. in doha coming up on the program. >> going to geneva two, syria's recognized opposition said it will talk peace. the resounding yes, the egyptian committee said 98% of voters back a new constitution. south sudanese forces say they've recaptured the last state cap