Gymnastics Learns a New Trick: Athletes Talk and Coaches Listen

Coach Sarah Jantzi with Grace McCallum at a gymnastics competition in Boston in 2018.Credit...Amy Sanderson, via Associated PressFORT WORTH — Sarah Jantzi, an elite gymnastics coach and the whistle-blower in the biggest sexual abuse scandal in sports history, trains her athletes using an approach that for years some fellow coaches considered unconventional.

When her current national team gymnast, Grace McCallum, is too tired to train in a productive way, Jantzi sends her home to rest. When she is injured, including when McCallum broke a bone in her hand in January needed a plate and seven screws to stabilize it, Jantzi tells her to return when she feels healthy. If McCallum is frustrated for…