According to a report on a prominent Olympic figure skating coach, eight years ago during a training session, a female student has been accused of physically abusing her, including biting.
Peter Opgaard – a bronze medalist at the 1988 US Olympic Games and Hall of Famer – reportedly bit skater Jessica Pfund, who was 15 when he was raging with her during a practice. Sessions in 2013, A. USA Today Sports and SafeSport investigation reveals.
“He was helping me get on the ice to show me the position of landing on a jump. Both of his hands were holding me, and he bent over and told me the outlet, “Pfund, who was now 23 years old, on the skin of his upper right hand, near the bitp.”
“I remember that he was completely amazed at why he did it,” she said. “I went home with a scratch and bite mark on my arm. My mother said, ‘I can see teeth marks.’
Pfund said the injury lasted for at least a week. Even if he should speak he discussed it with his mother, but not because he feared that Oppegaard would be spoiled.
“It was better not to say anything,” she told the outlet.
Her mother also worried that Opgaard’s family would be affected by coming out. She married Karen Kavan, the elder sister of five-time world champion Michelle Keevan, a prestigious figure skater and two Olympic medal winners in the 1990s. Cowan’s family owns and operates the Artesia rink in California.
Witnesses who spoke with SafeSport said OpGuard threw hot water and coffee at the skaters coaching at Artesia, where he worked from 2005 to 2018.
Pfund left the Artesia rink in 2014 and spoke to investigators with SafeSport but did not file a complaint against Oppard.
In a statement by US Figure Skating, USA Today Sports, it encourages anyone who has misused it to report to local law enforcement, the US Center for SafeSport or the association.
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