(New York) American bobsledder Aja Evans, bronze medalist in two-man bobsleigh at the 2014 Winter Olympics, has filed a sexual assault complaint against an American team doctor, who denies the accusations, several media reported Thursday .
In her complaint, filed Wednesday, she accuses a chiropractor from the American delegation, Jonathan Wilhelm, of having assaulted her for more than a decade, specify ESPN and the Times Union, a daily newspaper in Albany, New State. York.
“The repeated touching and sexual assault that I suffered at the hands of John Wilhelm damaged me physically and emotionally, to the point of experiencing chronic anxiety and falling out of love with my sport,” says the athlete. in a press release cited by the Times Union.
Aja Evans also targets the clinic run by Wilhelm as well as the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and the American Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation.
The chiropractor categorically rejected the accusations as “unfounded allegations,” his lawyer, Ryan Stevens, said in a statement cited by ESPN. “At no time did Dr. Wilhelm commit the vile and sickening acts that Ms. Evans now claims began more than a decade ago,” he added.
The complaint accuses the USOPC and the Bobsleigh Federation of not having protected her or taking her word seriously.
The bobsledder’s lawyer, Michelle Simpson Tuegel, is also counsel for more than twenty women engaged in civil proceedings against Larry Nassar, the former doctor of the American Olympic gymnastics team who was sentenced in total to more than of 100 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexual assault against former patients.
Questioned by ESPN, Me Simpson Tuegel considered that these two cases were “strangely similar”.
Last November, Aja Evans was suspended for two years for failing to submit a sample for a doping test in March 2022. According to her complaint, notes the Times Union, she gave up contesting this sanction due to her “exhaustion linked to these repeated attacks”.
