Years of Red Flags Ignored in the Sean Gardner Scandal

Warning signs regarding gymnastics coach Sean Gardner were raised long before he was finally arrested in August 2025, yet they were routinely dismissed.

According to a recent investigation, concerns regarding Gardner’s conduct were first raised in January 2018, when Candi Workman, then owner of a Mississippi gym reported Gardner to USA Gymnastics for “grooming behaviour”, only for the concerns to fall on deaf ears.

Undeterred, Gardner soon found work at the prestigious Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in Iowa, where further alarms started to be raised by both the gymnasts and their parents.

By 2019, meetings were held with gym owner Liang “Chow” Qiao as the gymnasts shared their discomfort that Gardner had inappropriately touched them under the guise of training techniques, with some gymnasts reporting inappropriate comments by Gardner.

Despite these further red flags, Gardner was promoted to Head Coach in January 2020, being entrusted with directing the Chow’s Winter Classic meet.

In 2022, following a formal complaint to the U.S Centre for SafeSport, Gardner was temporarily banned  and removed from his role, with Chow and other staff being privately sanctioned for failing to report his misconduct.

Finally in August 2025, Gardner was arrested by the police on federal charges of child sexual exploitation, with the investigation revealing shocking details, including Gardner placing a hidden camera in a gym bathroom to record young girls undressing.

This harrowing saga echoes the Larry Nassar case, which is regarded as the biggest sexual abuse scandal in sporting history, laying bare systemic failures across the athletic-safeguarding landscape.   

The Nassar case, in which 139 Claimants including US Olympic gold medallists Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Aly Raisman brough claims against Nassar for decades of abuse, resulting in Nassar currently serving 175 years in prison for sexual assault and with $138.7 million in damages being secured in settlement for Nassar’s victims.

Sadly, the Gardner case is a sobering reminder that vigilance and timely action are non-negotiable when protecting children in sport, and serves as a call to arms to tighten protocols, accountability and a culture that listens to the most vulnerable voices.