Shortly before the U.S. Championships in the spring of 2017, U.S. artistic swimming national team and La Mirada Aquabelles coach Hiea-Yoon Kang observed a group of swimmers she was coaching do the splits on the pool deck as part of their stretching exercises.
“Hiea-Yoon was not happy with my toe point and my extension,” a swimmer said, recalling the drill during a previously undisclosed interview with a U.S. Center for SafeSport investigator, “so she stood on my foot and I felt it pop.”
The pain the swimmer felt was evident to Kang, the athlete said in the interview.
“I expressed to her that it hurt and obviously you could see the pain on my face but it was very much a rule that we weren’t allowed to cry or say anything at practice,” the swimmer told the U.S. Center for SafeSport investigator. “So there was a lot of fear built up about expressing pain or just how we felt, anyone that was crying would be singled out. And I never, ever cried at practice, that was just not a thing that I did. But of course, when your toe gets stood on and it pops, it was extremely painful, so I started crying.
“And I remember my teammate, was right next to me, and I essentially was holding on to her arm and I was just sobbing. And Hiea-Yoon saw that I was crying, and she verbally degraded me and called me a baby and put me down for crying.”
The athlete’s recounting of the incident is part of a confidential U.S. Center for SafeSport investigation update that is among a series of documents reviewed or obtained by the Orange County Register in which former U.S. national team and La Mirada Aquabelles members and parents detail multiple occasions where Kang allegedly physically injured athletes and then taunted them, even at times laughing at them, as they suffered and cried in pain. Kang also threatened, demeaned and body-shamed swimmers, and pressured them to compete or train while seriously injured, according to allegations made in the SafeSport document.
“I couldn’t point my foot anymore because of the pain,” the swimmer continued in her interview with the SafeSport investigator, adding that while she tried to move her foot, Kang reprimanded her for crying.
“And then she stood on it again and it popped two more times, and then I was crying even harder,” the swimmer said. Meanwhile, Kang continued to criticize her for crying.
The confidential 572-page, December 3 SafeSport investigation update confirms and expands on a nearly 9,000-word Register special report published in May in which former U.S. national team members, La Mirada Aquabelles swimmers and their parents alleged in interviews with the newspaper and in complaints to the U.S. Center for SafeSport obtained by the Register that Kang, over the course of more than a decade, has routinely physically, verbally and emotionally abused athletes as young as 9, many of whom have been driven hours each day or relocated from other parts of the state or country to join a program that has become a pipeline to the U.S. Olympic and national teams.
Kang is “someone who finds a lot of joy in just making us scream,” an Aquabelles swimmer told a SafeSport investigator.
The SafeSport investigation update as well as other previously undisclosed SafeSport and arbitration documents obtained by the Register in recent weeks reveal that officials and coaches at USA Artistic Swimming, the sport’s national governing body, repeatedly prioritized the organization’s image and Olympic success over athlete safety. USAAS continued to hire and promote Kang to prominent positions on the U.S. Olympic and national team staffs more than a year after USAAS was first alerted to allegations of physical, verbal and emotional abuse against Kang. USAAS only suspended her in May after being informed of an upcoming Register report, the prospect of which raised concerns within the NGB that Kang would be linked to the group and “bring problematic attention to the organization,” according to documents related to Kang’s arbitration under U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee by-laws last July in which she sought to be reinstated to the U.S. Olympic team coaching staff.
USAAS CEO Adam Andrasko testified at an arbitration hearing that “adding Coach Kang to the Olympic team, with the serious allegations unresolved, would pose detrimental impacts on the team’s ability to focus, was not practical in terms of the limited staff resources available to assign a chaperone, and risks to potential loss of sponsorships and philanthropic fundraising. He added, that the culture of sport has to be right,” according to arbitration documents.
The SafeSport documents and athlete and parent interviews also raise concerns about the Center’s handling of the Kang case. Athletes and parents allege in interviews with the Register that SafeSport officials failed to respond to their questions and concerns in a timely manner, if they responded at all. The Center did not inform Kang of the allegations against her until nearly 17 months after SafeSport began its investigation. During that time Kang continued to physically, emotionally and verbally abuse young athletes, swimmers and parents allege in SafeSport documents and interviews.
“How unbelievably cruel this sport is,” Miranda Marquez, a former Aquabelles swimmer said in a recent interview with the Register. “If (the U.S. Center for SafeSport and USAAS) mean what they say about protecting athletes, then Coach Kang will never coach again.
“If she can coach then their words mean nothing. Their words are worthless.”
The SafeSport update also includes Kang’s only known comments about the allegations against her.
“I would say I am tough and strict, but in a way that is … I push athletes to be their best,” Kang told SafeSport investigator Jason Krasley in a September 23 interview, according to a transcript of the interview.
The U.S. Center for SafeSport fired Krasley in November after learning he had been arrested for stealing money confiscated after a drug bust while working for the Allentown, Pennsylvania, police department in 2021. The case remains unresolved, according to published reports.
Kang, 42, denied calling athletes stupid or lazy, and she denied that she screamed at or mocked injured athletes. But Kang in her interview responded to at least 17 questions about specific incidents by saying “I don’t remember” or that she couldn’t recall.
At one point during the interview, Krasley asked Kang if she ever taunted swimmers while they ran on the streets near the LaMirada pool as part of their training?
“I don’t remember,” she said.
Did Kang ever drive up to running swimmers and tell them, “You had a Jamba Juice and they were running?” Krasley asked.
“I don’t remember,” Kang said again.
Kang declined to comment when approached by a Register reporter after a practice earlier this month.
But former U.S. national team and Aquabelles swimmers and their parents allege in interviews with SafeSport investigators included in the center’s injury update that athletes trained, competed and lived in almost constant fear of Kang physically, verbally or emotionally abusing them, threatening to kick them out of practices or competition routines while having what and how much they ate tracked and criticized.
Among the allegations in the SafeSport documents:
• Three swimmers allege that Kang physically injured them during stretching drills and then mocked them, according to SafeSport interview transcripts.
“I think she enjoyed it when it did hurt you,” a former swimmer told SafeSport.
• Swimmers said they often felt “bullied” by Kang and witnessed the coach bullying other athletes on a regular basis.
• Kang allegedly routinely body-shamed swimmers, criticized athletes’ diet and eating habits, and made them track and inform her of what they were eating, according to the SafeSport interview transcripts.
Kang called one group of Aquabelles swimmers “the Teletubbies Club.”
“Essentially alluding to the fact that we needed to lose weight,” a former Aquabelles swimmer said referring to Kang’s use of the nickname.
• While USA Artistic Swimming received allegations of “psychological and emotional abuse” by Kang on October 24, 2022, the NGB continued to name her to U.S. Olympic and national team coaching staffs at prestigious international competitions like the Olympic Games and World Championships and only suspended her on May 9 after learning about the upcoming Register special report, according to documents related to Kang’s arbitration.
“USAAS agrees the suspension was a direct result of USAAS becoming aware of an article that was to be published later in the OC Register,” according to the arbitration panel’s final ruling.
• The documents also detail Kang’s obsession with keeping the Aquabelles’ present training site, Fullerton College, secret after City of La Mirada officials suspended her from coaching at the team’s longtime training site, Splash! La Mirada Regional Aquatics Center, in June, a month after the Register special report was published.
“The kids, the athletes, were also instructed by parents and the coach to not share the pool location,” the parent of an Aquabelles and U.S. national team member told a U.S. Center for SafeSport investigator in October. “To be honest, we are concerned that if our location is found out, that pool may receive phone calls about the coach coaching there and being told about an investigation, those allegations of misconduct and abuse and then we would be without a pool again. So that’s our, the parents’ fear of letting people know where we practice.”
The names of athletes interviewed by SafeSport were redacted by the Center in the investigation update. At least a half-dozen former and current U.S. national team and Aquabelles swimmers have filed written complaints against Kang with SafeSport but are not presently cooperating with the center’s investigation out of fear of being retaliated against by Kang and/or her allies with USAAS, according to four people familiar with the investigation.
After Andrasko received the complaint against Kang alleging “psychological and emotional misconduct and abuse” in October 2022 the NGB forwarded the complaint to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, which then took jurisdiction over the case, according to SafeSport and USAAS documents.
Nine months later, in July 2023, Kang was hired as U.S. senior national team assistant coach, signing a contract that ran from that July to October 2023, according to SafeSport documents. On March 15, 2024, USAAS renewed Kang’s contract for a term from February through August 2024.
By that time USAAS had already named Kang and another coach to the U.S. Olympic Games and World Championship coaching staff, stating that the coaches would have a “positive impact” on Team USA’s culture.
“The two coaches will bring their strong skill sets to enhance the abilities of the country’s best athletes in their pursuit of Olympic success,” USAAS said in a statement in a January 24 press release. “These positions will also enhance our commitment to a healthy attitude that fosters the development of the best all-around athlete. The goal is to help each athlete become the most well-rounded individual in and out of the sport.”
Kang later testified that she had been assigned to work primarily with the U.S. duet team, according to arbitration documents.
Andrasko testified that USAAS submitted Kang’s name on May 1 as part of a “short list” of USAAS Olympic Games staff sent to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, which determined who would be accredited for the Paris Olympics later that summer, according to arbitration documents.
Kang coached Team USA at the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup in Paris May 3-5, returning to the U.S. on May 6. She was scheduled to begin working the U.S. duet at the team’s first practice on May 9.
Instead Kang was indefinitely suspended by USAAS on that day.
After returning from Paris, Kang informed Andrasko about a May 2 email she had received from a Register reporter. The email contained more than 40 questions for Kang about more than 70 abuse allegations against her by swimmers and their parents. Kang did not respond to the reporter’s email or multiple other requests for comment via email, phone messages and texts over the course of several weeks last spring.
“Coach Kang promptly notified and sought guidance from Mr. Andrasko, who expressed concern to the effect that ‘(i)f this article were to come out, the allegations, the Coach’s name and club, could link Coach to USAAS’ and thus bring problematic attention to the organization,” according to arbitration documents.
On May 8, Andrasko sent an email to the U.S. Center for SafeSport. Under subject he wrote, “Seeking Guidance.”
“I need you to please direct me to the correct department or person for this type of advisement,” Andrasko wrote in the email. “The Center has jurisdiction of a case. The person in that case is a contract employee of mine. I would like to discuss what actions I can and can’t take.”
A day later Jocelyn Shafer, SafeSport’s director of intake and resolution, responded to Andrasko. The content of Shafer’s email are redacted in arbitration documents but Andrasko told the Register in May that he had been notified by SafeSport of additional allegations against Kang “that were much more concerning” than the initial October 22 complaints. Later that day, May 9, Andrasko notified Kang by letter that USAAS was “indefinitely suspending” her contract.
“USAAS has received allegations of concerning behavior that has taken place outside of the national team setting,” Andrasko wrote to Kang. “These allegations are concerning enough that at this time the organization feels that an indefinite suspension is necessary. This will remain in place until the conclusion of the Center for SafeSport’s interview and determination process is complete. Upon completion USAAS will reassess the contractor/organization relationship.”
Later in issuing a ruling denying Kang’s bid to be reinstated to the Olympic team staff, a USAAS hearing panel stated that “given the high-profile media coverage of abuse allegations that were under ongoing investigation, USAAS had reason to believe that Ms. Kang’s continued employment with the Senior National Team Coaching Staff would raise concerns. … Extensive media coverage of abuse allegations of a coach in an Olympic year would potentially endanger the psychological safety of the Olympic team.”
It wasn’t until six weeks after she was suspended that Kang received her first communication from SafeSport confirming the allegations against her. SafeSport’s “Confidential Notice of Allegations” against Kang issued on June 18 lists “allegations of emotional and physical misconduct ‘that may violate the SafeSport Code.’”
Kang then sought to overturn the USAAS hearing panel ruling and be reinstated to the Olympic team coaching staff through arbitration under USOPC by-laws. In a July 24 ruling, New Era ADR, an arbitration panel commissioned by the USOPC, denied Kang’s request. During the hearing, Andrasko disputed Kang’s testimony that she “had numerous conversations with the Head Coach (Andrea Fuentes) wanting to bring her back and help the team with her technical expertise.”
Still Kang continues to have supporters within USAAS.
Olympic champion Tammy McGregor, named U.S. national team head coach in October, recalled in an October 17 interview with SafeSport investigator Krasley that she first became aware of Kang around 2010 or 2011.
“It was pretty clear that she was producing great athletes with great technical skills,” McGregor said.
Kang received her first Team USA post in 2011 when she was named U.S. junior national team coach. She coached the U.S. at the 2013 and 2014 Junior World Championships.
“She’s tough in terms of, I hate to stereotype, but an Asian coach would be, you don’t negotiate,” McGregor said of Kang in the SafeSport interview. “It’s like, it’s right or it’s wrong. It’s good or it’s not.”
But former U.S. national team and Aquabelles swimmers and parents in the previously undisclosed interviews with SafeSport investigators allege that Kang’s coaching methods weren’t just tough but often physically, emotionally and verbally abusive.
“Coach Kang was very scary,” an Aquabelles swimmer told SafeSport.
“She always played little mind games with you,” another Aquabelles swimmer said in a SafeSport interview. “I feel like she just never cared about the swimmers. She only cared about the results.”
Even in artistic swimming, a sport with a well-documented history of abusive coaches, Kang’s physical abuse, bullying and obsession with weight and diet stood out, swimmers told SafeSport investigators.
An Aquabelles swimmer was asked by a SafeSport investigator what the biggest differences between Kang and other coaches were.
“I guess her temper,” the swimmer responded. “It’s very easy to piss her off. If we’re asking too many questions, she’d get mad. She treats us like we’re dumb, like, ‘Why don’t you get it?’ Why are you asking questions and then will get mad.
“I guess that or just the sheer craziness of her (training) sets. Because again, we do have a lot of hard sets and everything, which I’m no stranger to, but her’s are just literally impossible.”
A former Aquabelles swimmer confirmed to a SafeSport investigator what she referred to as the “infamous birthday workout.”
At a 2011 Aquabelles practice, Kang announced that it was her 29th birthday and to commemorate the occasion the swimmers would swim 50 yards in 29 seconds 29 times, Marquez told the Register earlier this year.
“One way would be butterfly and the way back would be an underwater lap,” Marquez said. “No breathing.”
“We had to start the 29 (sprints) over if we took a breath,” Marquez continued in the interview with the Register. “Coach Kang told us that blacking out was not an excuse not to finish the drills and that we would have to finish them before she allowed any medical attention. She even remarked that she didn’t want us passing out and messing it up for everyone else by making our teammates rescue us and make us all start from the top.”
In a December 5, 2023 interview with SafeSport, five months before the publication of the Register report another Aquabelles swimmer outlined the birthday workout.
“We’re going to do 29 times for my 29th birthday,” the swimmer told SafeSport. “It was like, ‘What?’
“So it’s basically you go there and back and you get one breath, and we did it 29 times.”
Kang was asked about the workout in her interview.
“Honestly, I can’t give you so many details from that day, from that practice,” Kang told Krasley. “It was years ago. But yes, there was a period of time when on the date of my birthday, where whether I was 29, 28 that was the workout where we did 29 sets of whatever it was. If you were to ask me what the set was, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
The investigator told her that swimmers alleged the workout was 29 50s in 29 seconds.
“No,” Kang responded. “It’s impossible to do that.”
But Marquez and another swimmer told SafeSport that was indeed the workout Kang demanded they do on her 29th birthday.
Marquez in a previous interview with the Register and in speaking with a SafeSport investigator had very specific memories of the workout. Only days earlier, Marquez, then 16, had been rushed to a local emergency room to treat a kidney stone. The kidney stone remained trapped causing infection and leaving her in agonizing pain.
“Before practice, I had told (Kang) that my kidney was hurting horribly and that I had been vomiting from the pain. She said something very close to, ‘That sucks but you’re here so you’re going to do what I said,’” Marquez told the Register. “Again, I prioritized my getting better over my health and I was only 16. I didn’t know what to say or do. So I started the drills with everyone else.”
By the 19th 50, after more than a half-mile of swimming, a quarter-mile underwater without breathing, Marquez realized she couldn’t continue.
“Those are both hypoxic exercises so the pain in my back and my kidney was getting so excruciating,” she said. “Because I knew I was peeing blood and I knew I was going to throw up and I ran to the bathroom.”
Marquez informed Kang of what was going on and as she dashed to the bathroom she heard the coach yell behind her, “We’ll wait until you’re back in the pool but everyone has to restart because of you.”
Kang followed Marquez into the bathroom where she found the swimmer “collapsed on the bathroom floor vomiting and sobbing,” Marquez said.
Marquez asked Kang to call her parents so they could take her to the emergency room.
“She acted like I hadn’t said anything and instead said, ‘You know everyone has to start over because of you now, right?’”
Marquez said in the Register interview, repeating an account she made in a written complaint to the U.S. Center for Safe Sport. “I was too stunned and in too much pain to respond.”
Marquez in her interview with a SafeSport investigator said she told Kang about the pain she was going through because of the kidney stone.
“And she said, straight up told me to my face ‘I don’t care,’” Marquez said according to her SafeSport interview transcript.
Kang also told Marquez, “You’ve ruined my 29th birthday celebration,” Marquez told the investigator.
Exams later revealed that Marquez’s kidney was twice the size of a normal kidney and a stent was needed to drain the infections. She later required surgery.
In her SafeSport interview, Kang was asked if she told the swimmers they would be denied medical treatment if they passed out.
“Absolutely not,” Kang said. “I don’t believe I have ever said that, that they would not be allowed any medical help.”
Did she see Marquez leaving the pool in pain?
“I don’t remember,” Kang said.
Did she tell Marquez she didn’t care?
“No,” Kang said. “I would never say that to an athlete.”
Did she recall Marquez vomiting?
“I don’t remember,” she said.
Marquez also alleged in her SafeSport interview that Kang injured the swimmer and other athletes when she grabbed and twisted their feet in a toe-point stretching drill.
Kang told the swimmers, “I’m not going to let go of your guy’s feet until each one of you screams,” Marquez said in the SafeSport interview.
Marquez said she told Kang no one had made her feet hurt in a toe-point stretch because she had unusually flexible feet.
During the drill, Kang yanked on one of Marquez’s big toes, dislocating it, Marquez said.
“I screamed,” she told SafeSport.
“Now they’ll hurt,” Marquez recalled Kang telling her.
“The ramifications of that that came from Coach Kang were so horrible, so physically horrible because she would just drill us into the ground, like torture us with drills,” Marquez said in her SafeSport interview.
Kang was asked by SafeSport about standing or sitting on athletes or manipulating swimmers’ legs or feet during stretching exercises.
“I help all athletes stretch,” Kang said.
“So it’s very common in our sport to assist and help the athlete with their stretching,” Kang said later in her SafeSport interview. “… So if I needed to help athletes get a little extra stretch, yes, I did.
“I would say for all athletes, you’re of course going to get sore, yeah.”
Another former Aquabelles swimmer recounted for SafeSport how Kang during a 2020 workout continued to push on the athlete’s injured knee despite the swimmer being in clear pain and asking her to stop.
“Can you stop, can you stop, can you stop,” the swimmer recalled telling Kang. “And she was just laughing.”
The injury made it difficult for the swimmer to walk, she told SafeSport.
Kang “told me to take painkillers and just ice my knee and she said I’ll be fine,” the swimmer said.
Kang was asked during her SafeSport interview if she told athletes to use painkillers.
“I don’t recall,” she said. “I don’t remember.”
Did she remember an athlete being in pain and asking her to stop?
“I don’t recall,” Kang said.
The swimmer also recalled Kang yelling “a lot” at a swimmer with a history of concussions because she needed to take frequent water breaks for medical reasons.
Kang frequently threatened to kick swimmers off the team, swimmers and parents told SafeSport.
“If you don’t do this right now then I’ll kick you off the team,” an athlete told SafeSport investigator Esther Johnson.
“It’s not screaming, but I do raise my voice to make sure the athletes can hear me, but it’s not screaming or yelling,” Kang said. “It’s more of just raising my voice to make sure I’m heard.”
Kang also made it clear about how she felt about swimmers’ weight and eating habits, athletes told SafeSport investigators.
“We all ate these fig bars at practice,” a swimmer told SafeSport. “Hiea-Yoon told me to stop eating it because they made me fat.
“I thought we were over the days of telling someone not to eat certain foods, but I guess not.”
McGregor was asked during her interview with SafeSport if “body image, body definition” were important in artistic swimming.
“Yeah,” McGregor said. “I mean it’s not racing the clock, right? It’s when you walk out on that deck, the judges are already making an evaluation of your training and how fit all of it. Is this an aesthetic sport? As much as anyone will tell you, oh, maybe it’s not or it shouldn’t matter, it absolutely matters.
“But it’s part of the sport. I mean, when you work with sports scientists, they’ll tell you to train. The gymnastic guy told me to train the snot out of them before that muscle-to-body weight ratio changed. And then I think that was really good advice because when you are smaller, your prepubescent human, you can build the strength because your body weight is so much smaller, a lot faster. And then when that happens, it’s harder.
“There’s definitely a stigma that goes with the club she coaches,” McGregor continued, referring to Kang. “That they’re all tan and skinny. And so, is that because it’s like China and she’s picking the right people? Or is it a culture thing? Is it because they’re Asian and Asians tend not to eat like Americans?
“I don’t know.”
Swimmers recalled to SafeSport that Kang making a series of demeaning or cutting comments about athletes’ weight or diet.
“You’re big.”
“You’re fat.”
“That’s a whole buffet.”
“Are you going to eat all that in 30 minutes?”
“Didn’t you just eat?”
While one former Aquabelles swimmer told the center “I didn’t feel pressure not to eat stuff,” others felt Kang was constantly monitoring what they were eating.
“The fact that you’re sitting on the ground and having someone walk around, towering over you and peering at what you’re (eating), just felt very, I don’t know, it felt like prison guard-esque, just degrading and a little bit scary,” a former Aquabelles swimmer told SafeSport.”
At one point, the swimmer said, Kang required a group of athletes to track their food intake.
“She had us come with notebooks (to practice),” the swimmer said in her SafeSport interview “We took detailed notes on ‘Oh, we shouldn’t be eating this kind of bar and we shouldn’t be eating this.’ And all that stuff. And there was a lot of conversation on what not to eat and not necessarily on how to properly provide nutrients for our bodies and properly take care of ourselves in the same way.
“It felt like we were almost pitted against one another because essentially, she created a group chat in which we would be asked to send pictures of everything ate throughout the day. So I would be at school eating my lunch and I would be sending her a picture of my bag of cucumbers or whatever it was that I was eating.
“I was looking up how many calories are in three mini-cucumbers.”
Kang denied having swimmers keep notebooks detailing what they were eating.
“I had never asked them to write down things that should not be eating,” she said.
But when asked by SafeSport if she spoke to athletes about eating Kang said, “I don’t recall that.” When asked about the group chat she said “I don’t remember.”
But a swimmer who said she was part of a group chat told SafeSport she was also one of the athletes who was part of what Kang called the Teletubbies Club.
When she was 13, the athlete told SafeSport that Kang made her and her teammates run as much as six miles in 100-degree heat while wearing weight belts.
“You guys are fat, you need to lose weight and you need to run,” the swimmer told SafeSport, describing what she said was a regular routine for the “Teletubbies” group.
The swimmer pointed out to the SafeSport investigator that she “weighed less in high school than sixth grade.”
Kang denied calling the group the Teletubbies Club or that the workouts were punishment.
“They,” Kang said “loved running.”
Hiea-Yoon Kang suspended by La Mirada from coaching at city pool
Hiea-Yoon Kang, subject of SafeSport abuse probe, continues to coach at Fullerton College pool
