Shortly before the U.S. Championships in the spring of 2017, U.S. artistic swimming national team and La Mirada Aquabelles coach Hiea-Yoon Kang observed a group of swimmers she was coaching do the splits on the pool deck as part of their stretching exercises.
“Hiea-Yoon was not happy with my toe point and my extension,” a swimmer said, recalling the drill during a previously undisclosed interview with a U.S. Center for SafeSport investigator, “so she stood on my foot and I felt it pop.”
The pain the swimmer felt was evident to Kang, the athlete said in the interview.
“I expressed to her that it hurt and obviously you could see the pain on my face but it was very much a rule that we weren’t allowed to cry or say anything at practice,” the swimmer told the U.S. Center for SafeSport investigator. “So there was a lot of fear built up about expressing pain or just how we felt, anyone that was crying would be singled out. And I never, ever cried at practice, that was just not a thing that I did. But of course, when your toe gets stood on and it pops, it was extremely painful, so I started crying.
“And I remember my teammate, was right next to me, and I essentially was holding on to her arm and I was just sobbing. And Hiea-Yoon saw that I was crying, and she verbally degraded me and called me a baby and put me down for crying.”
The athlete’s recounting of the incident is part of a confidential U.S. Center for SafeSport investigation update that is among a series of documents reviewed or obtained by the Orange County Register in which former U.S. national team and La Mirada Aquabelles members and parents detail multiple occasions where Kang allegedly physically injured athletes and then taunted them, even at times laughing at them, as they suffered and cried in pain. Kang also threatened, demeaned and body-shamed swimmers, and pressured them to compete or train while seriously injured, according to allegations made in the SafeSport document.
“I couldn’t point my foot anymore because of the pain,” the swimmer continued in her interview with the SafeSport investigator, adding that while she tried to move her foot, Kang reprimanded her for crying.
“And then she stood on it again and it popped two more times, and then I was crying even harder,” the swimmer said. Meanwhile, Kang continued to criticize her for crying.
The confidential 572-page, December 3 SafeSport investigation update confirms and expands on a nearly 9,000-word Register special report published in May in which former U.S. national team members, La Mirada Aquabelles swimmers and their parents alleged in interviews with the newspaper and in complaints to the U.S. Center for SafeSport obtained by the Register that Kang, over the course of more than a decade, has routinely physically, verbally and emotionally abused athletes as young as 9, many of whom have been driven hours each day or relocated from other parts of the state or country to join a program that has become a pipeline to the U.S. Olympic and national teams.
Kang is “someone who finds a lot of joy in just making us scream,” an Aquabelles swimmer told a SafeSport investigator.
USA Artistic Swimming was aware of allegations
The SafeSport investigation update as well as other previously undisclosed SafeSport and arbitration documents obtained by the Register in recent weeks reveal that officials and coaches at USA Artistic Swimming, the sport’s national governing body, repeatedly prioritized the organization’s image and Olympic success over athlete safety. USAAS continued to hire and promote Kang to prominent positions on the U.S. Olympic and national team staffs more than a year after USAAS was first alerted to allegations of physical, verbal and emotional abuse against Kang. USAAS only suspended her in May after being informed of an upcoming Register report, the prospect of which raised concerns within the NGB that Kang would be linked to the group and “bring problematic attention to the organization,” according to documents related to Kang’s arbitration under U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee by-laws last July in which she sought to be reinstated to the U.S. Olympic team coaching staff.
USAAS CEO Adam Andrasko testified at an arbitration hearing that “adding Coach Kang to the Olympic team, with the serious allegations unresolved, would pose detrimental impacts on the team’s ability to focus, was not practical in terms of the limited staff resources available to assign a chaperone, and risks to potential loss of sponsorships and philanthropic fundraising. He added, that the culture of sport has to be right,” according to arbitration documents.
The SafeSport documents and athlete and parent interviews also raise concerns about the Center’s handling of the Kang case. Athletes and parents allege in interviews with the Register that SafeSport officials failed to respond to their questions and concerns in a timely manner, if they responded at all. The Center did not inform Kang of the allegations against her until nearly 17 months after SafeSport began its investigation. During that time Kang continued to physically, emotionally and verbally abuse young athletes, swimmers and parents allege in SafeSport documents and interviews.
“How unbelievably cruel this sport is,” Miranda Marquez, a former Aquabelles swimmer said in a recent interview with the Register. “If (the U.S. Center for SafeSport and USAAS) mean what they say about protecting athletes, then Coach Kang will never coach again.
“If she can coach then their words mean nothing. Their words are worthless.”
The SafeSport update also includes Kang’s only known comments about the allegations against her.
“I would say I am tough and strict, but in a way that is … I push athletes to be their best,” Kang told SafeSport investigator Jason Krasley in a September 23 interview, according to a transcript of the interview.
The U.S. Center for SafeSport fired Krasley in November after learning he had been arrested for stealing money confiscated after a drug bust while working for the Allentown, Pennsylvania, police department in 2021. The case remains unresolved, according to published reports.
“I don’t remember”
Kang, 42, denied calling athletes stupid or lazy, and she denied that she screamed at or mocked injured athletes. But Kang in her interview responded to at least 17 questions about specific incidents by saying “I don’t remember” or that she couldn’t recall.
At one point during the interview, Krasley asked Kang if she ever taunted swimmers while they ran on the streets near the LaMirada pool as part of their training?
“I don’t remember,” she said.
Did Kang ever drive up to running swimmers and tell them, “You had a Jamba Juice and they were running?” Krasley asked.
“I don’t remember,” Kang said again.
Kang declined to comment when approached by a Register reporter after a practice earlier this month.
But former U.S. national team and Aquabelles swimmers and their parents allege in interviews with SafeSport investigators included in the center’s injury update that athletes trained, competed and lived in almost constant fear of Kang physically, verbally or emotionally abusing them, threatening to kick them out of practices or competition routines while having what and how much they ate tracked and criticized.
Among the allegations in the SafeSport documents:
• Three swimmers allege that Kang physically injured them during stretching drills and then mocked them, according to SafeSport interview transcripts.
“I think she enjoyed it when it did hurt you,” a former swimmer told SafeSport.
• Swimmers said they often felt “bullied” by Kang and witnessed the coach bullying other athletes on a regular basis.
• Kang allegedly routinely body-shamed swimmers, criticized athletes’ diet and eating habits, and made them track and inform her of what they were eating, according to the SafeSport interview transcripts.
Kang called one group of Aquabelles swimmers “the Teletubbies Club.”
“Essentially alluding to the fact that we needed to lose weight,” a former Aquabelles swimmer said referring to Kang’s use of the nickname.
• While USA Artistic Swimming received allegations of “psychological and emotional abuse” by Kang on October 24, 2022, the NGB continued to name her to U.S. Olympic and national team coaching staffs at prestigious international competitions like the Olympic Games and World Championships and only suspended her on May 9 after learning about the upcoming Register special report, according to documents related to Kang’s arbitration.
“USAAS agrees the suspension was a direct result of USAAS becoming aware of an article that was to be published later in the OC Register,” according to the arbitration panel’s final ruling.
• The documents also detail Kang’s obsession with keeping the Aquabelles’ present training site, Fullerton College, secret after City of La Mirada officials suspended her from coaching at the team’s longtime training site, Splash! La Mirada Regional Aquatics Center, in June, a month after the Register special report was published.
“The kids, the athletes, were also instructed by parents and the coach to not share the pool location,” the parent of an Aquabelles and U.S. national team member told a U.S. Center for SafeSport investigator in October. “To be honest, we are concerned that if our location is found out, that pool may receive phone calls about the coach coaching there and being told about an investigation, those allegations of misconduct and abuse and then we would be without a pool again. So that’s our, the parents’ fear of letting people know where we practice.”
Despite allegations, coach was given key assignments
The names of athletes interviewed by SafeSport were redacted by the Center in the investigation update. At least a half-dozen former and current U.S. national team and Aquabelles swimmers have filed written complaints against Kang with ...
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