Fighting sex abuse in sports a difficult task

Judges, event organisers and even some riders were caught off-guard earlier this year when a well-known equestrian judge got booted out of one of the year's biggest horse shows.

Turns out, the judge's name had been flagged by the US Centre for SafeSport, the newly created office charged with overseeing sex-abuse cases in Olympic sports, because he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanour sex assault five years earlier, in a case that had nothing to do with minors or anyone in his sport.

Had he been at the show in a Philadelphia suburb working as a trainer, however, his case may have never been discovered. While judges in the horse-show world receive maximum scrutiny in an effort to protect athletes from sex abuse, the federation that oversees the sport on the Olympic level does not apply the same standards to the vast majority of the sport's trainers and coaches the individuals who have the most day-to-day contact with the riders.

EYE-OPENING WINDOW

The case involving the judge, Robert Bielefeld, offers an eye-opening window into some of the difficulties and unintended consequences presented by the US Olympic movement's mission to combat sexual abuse within its ranks. It's a mission that took on more urgency after a sex-abuse scandal rocked USA Swimming in 2010, then metastasised into headline news in the wake of physician Larry Nassar's abuse of nearly 300 gymnasts, including some on the US Olympic team.

The mission has also added immense pressure to administrators in dozens of niche sports, many of whom are experts in their field but don't have the skills to craft sex-abuse-prevention policies that can have life-changing impact on victims and those who are accused.

"Upset. Disappointed," Devon Horse Show manager David Distler said of Bielefeld's reaction over his ouster from the renowned event over Memorial Day. "He thought it was done, finished, and it just kind of came up again out of nowhere."

Bielefeld did not respond to several requests from The Associated Press, made via telephone, email and social media, to comment for this story.