Eighteen-year-old Finley Weldon is finally speaking openly about the years of abuse she endured from her former coach, Sean Gardner, who was arrested last week on a child sexual exploitation charge. In an interview with the Associated Press, Weldon said she feels proud that she’s still competing in gymnastics, while so many of her friends who trained under Gardner left the sport.
“I didn’t want him to take away anything from me, especially something that I love,” Weldon said. “None of the girls that I started with or went through the things that I did with Sean are still doing gymnastics today. So that’s something I’m very proud of.”
Weldon, who is about to begin her freshman year at Iowa State University as a member of the Cyclones gymnastics team, also said she wanted to use her name publicly. “I felt like I needed to speak out to stop it from happening to other little girls,” she explained. “I knew it would just be a continuous cycle if nobody did”, reported ABC News.
Gardner, 38, coached at Chow’s Gymnastics in West Des Moines, an academy that produced Olympians Shawn Johnson and Gabby Douglas, as well as gyms in Mississippi and Louisiana. According to an FBI affidavit, he was first reported to the U.S. Center for SafeSport in 2022 when a former gymnast accused him of sexual abuse and identified several other potential victims. Weldon confirmed she spoke with a SafeSport investigator at that time.
SafeSport suspended Gardner in July 2022, but local police closed their case when the first accuser declined to press charges. Weldon said police never contacted her then, though she admitted she might not have been ready to pursue charges. She ultimately came forward in April 2024, saying she had matured enough to recognize the severity of what she went through.
Investigators later searched Gardner’s home and found electronic devices with images of nude girls. Authorities believe he had hidden a camera in a bathroom at a Mississippi gym where he previously worked. Gardner is currently facing federal charges in Mississippi, and investigators say more charges are possible.
Weldon described how Gardner gained her trust when she was 11 years old, filling the gap left by her absent father. She said he started with long hugs and pats on the back before escalating to touching her inappropriately during training sessions. By 2020, she said, he was touching her genitals under the guise of spotting her during exercises. When she protested, he brushed it off, once telling her her “leotard was slippery.”
Her breaking point came in 2021 when Gardner berated her during practice, yelling and throwing shoes while telling her she’d never reach elite status. Weldon said she walked out and told her mom she wanted to quit. Despite the trauma, she pushed forward, continuing to train after her family moved to Texas and then Utah. She went on to earn elite status in the Junior Olympic program and secured a spot on a Division 1 team, proving Gardner wrong.
When she saw Gardner’s mugshot after his arrest, Weldon said she barely recognized him. “He’s definitely like gone through a spiral,” she said. “I think he probably just had so much guilt built up in him that he kind of turned into that.”