Butt-slapping accusation leads to 20 months of limbo for teen in slow-moving SafeSport Center case

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The center’s spokesperson, Hilary Nemchik, told the AP she could not speak about specific cases, but “those types of responses are not consistent with the center’s values or our commitments to athletes and will certainly be reviewed.” Not until fall of 2023 was the teen able to register for a USA Swimming event, and then, only with restrictions: He had to be chaperoned on the pool deck and could not come into contact with his accuser. The accused swimmer's mother said when SafeSport's letter landed, so many months had passed since the boys had their falling out that “we had no idea what the accusations were, and we had no idea what was going on.” In fact, it wasn’t SafeSport, but the local police department that first shed light when an investigator contacted the accused teen and his family in early July 2022 to ask questions about the alleged episode. The family’s best chance to put an end to the SafeSport case came in November 2022, when the center offered the teen an “informal resolution”: If he would admit to slapping the other boy, he could go back to swimming with a six-month probation. “And he said ‘No, I’m not going to admit to something I didn’t do.’" While the teen's sanctions have not kept him out of high school swimming, where he swam a full season his freshman year, the family worries the opportunities missed by not being able to swim in club meets could impact his future.