Olympic gold medalist Jordyn Wieber is opening about the impact that her gymnastics career and the Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal has had on her throughout her life.
Wieber, 29, is a contestant on the third season of Fox’s reality competition show Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test alongside other celebrities including athletes Nathan Adrian, Cam Newton, Landon Donovan, Marion Jones and Golden Tate.
During the two-hour season premiere, which aired on Wednesday, Jan. 8, Wieber experienced a anxiety attack and struggled to catch her breath during one intense exercise before gathering her composure and continuing in the competition. Afterwards, the former U.S. gymnast — who was part of the famed gold-medal winning “Fierce Five” squad at the 2012 Summer Olympics — reflected on why she wanted to become a contestant on the extreme reality competition.
“In the sport of gymnastics, it was really intense,” Wieber said. “The main motivating force was fear. We weren’t allowed to show emotion. And I think a lot of us post gymnastics have realized that it has long-lasting impacts on us as people.”
After the incident, the former athlete explained that she wanted to appear on the Fox program “to challenge myself in a new way that I haven’t really been able to challenge myself since my gymnastics ended.”
“There was stuff that was going on behind the scenes that just made it hard to continue and compete… I was a victim of one of the most prolific sexual abuse cases in the history of sport, a doctor was abusive and he went to jail,” Wieber explained, breaking down in tears during the episode.
When asked if she had “unfinished business” within herself, Wieber nodded her head yes and whispered, “yeah.”
“I look back on myself as a child during that time and go, ‘Wow, she really… she was resilient,’ “ Wieber recalled. “Obviously there were highs, there were also some very low lows. My parents always told me that I became an adult at a young age and I still feel that way.”
Wieber was one of several gymnasts who testified at Nassar’s trial in 2018, telling the courtroom that the disgraced former gymnastics doctor’s abuse began when she was 14 years old, according to The Detroit Free Press.
Nassar was later convicted in 2018 for sex abuse after he was accused by more than 150 women and girls and was sentenced to 175 years in prison, PEOPLE reported at the time.
The decorated Olympian retired from gymnastics in 2015 and took on the job of head gymnastics coach at her alma mater, UCLA, before later becoming the coach at Arkansas.
Wieber married Chris Brooks, a fellow Olympic gymnast and Arkansas gymnastics coach, last year after the couple began dating in 2016.
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Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.
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