Irvin Muchnick, an experienced investigative reporter of the dark side of our popular sports entertainments, gained access to thousands of pages of FBI files and other sources to expose scores of such scenarios, as well as the inaction of bureaucrats and even the most highly regarded politicians. The ranks of abusers include some of the most famous and celebrated coaches in swimming history. And there’s no fixing the problem, the author says, so long as hundreds of thousands of young swimmers annually — elite and casual athletes alike — remain at the mercy of the Olympic system’s money-hungry priorities.
Irvin Muchnick is the author of Wrestling Babylon, Chris & Nancy, Concussion Inc., and Without Helmets or Shoulder Pads: The American Way of Death in Football Conditioning. He has written articles for the New York Times, Salon, the Washington Monthly, People, Spy, Sports Illustrated, and other major outlets, as well as for Ireland’s Broadsheet and Village magazine and San Francisco’s Beyond Chron. He lives in Berkeley, CA.