Three former athletes and a former employee of U.S. Ski and Snowboard have accused longtime coach Peter Foley of sexual misconduct, ESPN reported.
The four women contacted the U.S. Center for SafeSport last week with their complaints. One of the athletes, an unnamed Olympic medalist, said she was sexually assaulted by Foley at training camp when she was 19.
Foley, who already was being investigated after allegations of sexual misconduct emerged during the Olympics in February, no longer works for U.S. Ski and Snowboard, the organization announced Sunday. He had coached for U.S. Ski and Snowboard since its founding in 1994.
A lawyer for Foley denied the allegations to ESPN and said Foley will cooperate with the investigation.
Former Team USA snowboarder Callan Chythlook-Sifsof, who competed at the 2010 Winter Games, said in a series of Instagram posts in February that Foley had “taken naked photos of female athletes for over a decade” and had made a sexually explicit comment about her to another woman in 2014.
Chythlook-Sifsof’s posts were published while Foley was in Beijing coaching at his seventh Olympics in Beijing.
The former Olympian who accused Foley of sexual assault had told just one relative about the experience until she saw Chythlook-Sifsof’s Instagram posts.
The athlete said she was asleep in a hotel room she shared with several training camp participants when Foley got into bed behind her, “reached his left arm over my body and put his fingers inside me.”
Lindsey Sine Nikola, who worked for U.S. Ski and Snowboard from 2006-10, also filed a complaint against Foley. She says he coerced her into taking nude photos and later sexually assaulted her at a World Cup ski race in 2008.
“My hope is this can be part of normalizing reporting abuse and for anyone who might be out there with an experience like this to feel more empowered to come forward,” Nikola told ESPN. “I know there are probably still people who will think that people like me bear responsibility in instances like this, but I am not responsible for a man assaulting me after I clearly and repeatedly said no.”