The establishment of this latest group, which will be chaired by USOC director of safe sport, Margaret Hoelzer, follows on from a number of developments put in place by the organisation in recent years which have focussed on identifying, adjudicating and sanctioning any misconduct along the athlete/coach chain.

"Sport plays a significant role in the lives of children," said Scott Blackmun, the USOC chief executive.

"We have to do everything we can to make sure that their exposure to sport is positive and not negative.

"We have to invest in creating safe environments.

"We have made good progress on that front, and I want to make sure we stay focused on putting the best possible systems in place.

"That is why this group is being assembled."

A Working Group for Safe Training Environments was set up by USOC in 2010, which examined four areas including sexual and physical misconduct in sport, guidelines across sport and sport-related organisations for responding to these issues, assess the needs of athletes, coaches, staff, national governing bodies (NGBs), clubs and other sport organisations, and develop a set of recommendations to promote athlete well-being.

Based on the recommendations of this group, USOC hired a director of safe sport and ethics, Malia Arrington who developed a programme that provided information, training and resources to NGBs of sport regarding best practices and clear guidelines for coaches and organisations to ensure proper and ethical conduct when dealing with athletes.


Following on from this, a welfare training programme targeting the improvement of athlete safety, called SafeSport was launched last year by USOC.

One of the resources to come out of this programme is a handbook titled "Recognising, Reducing and Responding to Misconduct in Sport: Creating Your Strategy," which aims to guide the development, implementation and internal review of effective athlete welfare and misconduct prevention strategies for local, regional and national sport organisations.

A website was also launched, providing users with the opportunity to download the handbook along with other resources such as best policies and procedure practices, a video-based online training programme, and other resources to identify the potential signs of abuse and the environments in which abuse can occur.

In addition, free legal support is available to NGBs through the SafeSport Legal Referral Network to help with proper investigations of any misconduct claims that arise.

"While the resources developed by the USOC are fantastic, and the pro-bono legal support provided has been amazing, we can always do more to ensure that children are protected and sport organisations are thriving," said International Olympic Committee (IOC) member and four-time Olympic medallist Angela Ruggiero, who is part of the new SafeSport Working Group.

"This working group will survey the resources currently available to NGBs, look at various models for investigating and enforcing misconduct in sport, and make a recommendation to the USOC on a clear way forward."

In April of this year, USOC also launched an additional programme specifically targeted at eliminating child abuse in sport called, Make the Commitment: Stop Abuse in Sport to coincide with child abuse awareness month. 

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April 2013: US Olympic Committee launches child abuse in sport prevention campaign