GYMNAST MAGGIE NICHOLS
THE WORLD CHAMPION ATHLETE WAS THE FIRST TO SPEAK ABOUT LARRY NASSAR’S ABUSE. IN HER NEW BOOK SHE SHARES HOW HER TRAUMA ON THE TEAM LED TO AN EATING DISORDER—AND HOW SHE FOUND JOY AGAIN
By EILEEN FINAN Photographs by JORDAN VONDERHAAR
HAIR & MAKEUP: DONNA HORNER/ ZENOBIA; LEFT PAGE:TERRY SCHMITT/UPI/SHUTTERSTOCK
1. Teammates like roommate Simone Biles and Madison Kocian (in 2015) “helped me get through everything.” 2. At Oklahoma (celebrating their win in 2017) she led her team to two NCAA titles.
Maggie Nichols has a sense of pride when she sees pictures of herself as a teen, tiny and tenacious in her Team U.S.A. leotard. “I worked so hard to get so strong,” the gymnast says of the hours she trained in hopes of making the 2016 Olympics. But at the same time, “I look back and I want to hug that girl, because she was tired and hungry and hurting.” During her four years with USA Gymnastics, Nichols, now 26, was subjected to verbal abuse, pressured to lose weight and sexually abused by Team U.S.A. doctor Larry Nassar, who was later convicted for his crimes.
In her new memoir Unstoppable! Nichols says that collective trauma led to an eating disorder (see sidebar): “My weight was something I could control. It was all I thought about.” And she writes that her decision to speak out against Nassar likely contributed to her losing a spot on the Olympic team. But despite the setback, Nichols went on to become an eight-time college champion at the University of Oklahoma, and today, “I’m so much stronger as an athlete and as person.”
Nichols was 14 in 2012 when she arrived on the doorstep of her dream: the Karolyi Ranch in Texas, where Bela and Marta Karolyi, legendary coaches of gold medalists like Mary Lou Retton and Carly Patterson, trained Team U.S.A.
Nichols had been doing flips in the gym near her home in Little Canada, Minn., since she was 3. By the time she made it to the ranch, she was laser-focused on the Olympics. She made fast friends with her roommate Simone Biles and at times placed just behind her in competition. Nichols’s tall, muscular build gave her power, but Marta Karolyi saw it as a problem, not an asset, and demanded the gymnast lose weight.
Speaking Out Testifying before Congress in 2021 with teammates and fellow abuse survivors Aly Raisman, Simone Biles and McKayla Maroney “felt so empowering,” says Nichols (far right).
CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM: SAUL LOEB/GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY MAGGIE NICHOLS; AMY PYLE
“I was shocked,” says Nichols. “I was young, so I didn’t think about body image before.” The shame—and dieting—began immediately. “I did everything to fit myself into the body they wanted. When you want to be the best, you’re willing to do anything to succeed. I wanted it so bad.”
She counted every calorie, cut out all carbs and was told she needed workouts on top of her gymnastics training. At one point she was down to just 6.5 percent body fat, but Marta Karolyi still berated her one day after seeing her grab a banana from a bowl of fruit. “I look back, and I’m like, geez,” she says. “But in the moment I told myself it was normal.” One of her coaches once sneaked a bowl of broccoli to her hotel room during a competition just so she could have something to fill her stomach.
Perpetually hungry and starved of anything other than protein, Nichols says her fatigue led to injuries. And that led to sessions with Nassar, where he assaulted her under the guise of treatment, as he did with several teammates including her close friend Biles, 26.
In 2015, before helping Team U.S.A. win gold at the world championship, she was the first on the The next year she was left off the roster for the Olympic team. “Possibly coming out hindered my chances . . . but it helped so many others, so that’s a win,” she says.
USA Gymnastics spokesperson Jill Greer says the organization has since “embraced a journey of cultural change” and no longer has a relationship with the Karolyis. (Nassar is serving a life sentence for his crimes.) “USA Gymnastics is deeply sorry for the trauma and pain that survivors have endured as a result of this organization’s actions and inactions,” Greer says.
Days after Nichols learned she wasn’t chosen for the Olympics, she retired from elite gymnastics. She continued her career as a collegiate athlete at Oklahoma, where “we were treated like royalty.” She thrived, winning the individual championship six times and leading her team to two titles.
Gymnastics is in her past, but since graduating with a master’s degree in education, Nichols, who’s recently engaged, works as a personal trainer in South Padre Island, Texas. She also advocates for victims of abuse through the Maggie Nichols Foundation. “I hate to think of what-ifs. I try to see the positive,” she says of readjusting her dreams. “I wish I could tell my younger self the Olympics isn’t everything. When a door closes, another swings wide open.”
IN HER BOOK, NICHOLS RECALLS THE PRESSURE TO BE THINI was going through puberty at the time, and my body was changing, so it was tough. But all eyes are on you at camp, and people weren’t being very nice or subtle. One day a coach put me in front of a mirror and asked what I saw. “I don’t know. Me?” I said, not sure what answer she was looking for. “No,” she said. “You’re puffy. You look puffy. Like a marshmallow.” I remember that vividly. I was so young, and that’s not the way I saw myself at all. But she insisted that I stay after my already long and grueling practice every day and run on the treadmill for 45 minutes. I did that for almost a year. The coaches knew I was talented, but they were persistently trying to squeeze me into a very different shape. That’s when things took a turn. Food became a struggle for me. Now my coach was weighing me instead of me just doing it privately at home. Since every ounce mattered, I would run into the bathroom and take out all my ponytails, remove all my hair clips, and toss my headband. I’d also spit into the toilet. I doubt it helped, but I wanted to be rid of as much excess weight as possible. I would be in school all day, go straight to practice, and then come home to a meager piece of fish for dinner. I was still so hungry. After working so hard in the gym, barely eating, and burning so many calories, I was spent. I wasn’t having enough food, and what food I did eat was not what my body needed. Protein helps repair muscle that gets broken down during exercise, but it is not a very good source of energy, and my body badly needed energy. It had no fuel! Some nights I couldn’t help myself; I would sneak downstairs and grab a small bowl of Special K—a protein cereal. That was what I considered cheating. The scale and I weren’t friends for a very long time. The mirror and I weren’t friends either. Even when my body started looking like what other people wanted it to look like, I thought it was looking worse. The idea that I needed to look thinner was always in my head. Whatever progress I made was never good enough. I wanted to be so perfect for the national team and my coach. I wanted to make the World and the Olympic teams. I was never diagnosed with an eating disorder or body dysmorphia, but I definitely think I had both for a very long time. At first, it felt imposed on me by others, but then my own drive to be perfect made it worse. I’m way better now, but the whole experience has left scars. When I look at pictures of me taken during the World Championships and I see what a twig I was, I sometimes think, I kind of like how I look there. I wish I still had those abs. I wish I had a six-pack like I used to. But I have learned to fuel myself the way I need to, and I use the strong will I was born with and developed further in gymnastics to help overcome those kinds of thoughts.From Unstoppable! ©2024 by Maggie Nichols. Reprinted with permission from Roaring Brook Press. All Rights Reserved.