Former athletes accuse ex-U.S. Snowboard coach Peter Foley of sexual assault
Content warning: This story contains instances of alleged sexual misconduct, abuse and assault.
More former athletes and an employee accused longtime U.S. Ski and Snowboard coach Peter Foley of sexual assault, according to a report from ESPN.
Foley, who first faced allegations during the Beijing Olympics earlier this year, was suspended by SafeSport on Friday. U.S. Ski and Snowboard then announced Sunday that Foley is no longer employed.
Among the new allegations, Foley has been accused of sexual assault, unwanted kissing and touching, coercing women into taking nude photos and more.
Foley, who has been on a leave of absence for a month, has denied all of the allegations against him through his attorney, Howard Jacobs.
"Any allegations of sexual misconduct being made against him are false," Jacobs told ESPN. "Mr. Foley has not engaged in any conduct that violates the SafeSport Code, and he will cooperate with the U.S. Center for SafeSport when and if they contact him."
Foley, 56, has been the head snowboarding coach for Team USA since the team was founded in 1994.
More allegations against Peter Foley
Three former snowboarders and one former team employee all made new allegations against Foley and have filed their complaints with SafeSport, according to ESPN.
One woman, a former Olympic medalist, said that Foley sexually assaulted her at a training camp when she was 19. The athlete, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not make the team initially that year.
At the camp's conclusion, she said, Foley drove the athletes to the airport, telling them they would all be sleeping together in the same room until their flights the next day. The athlete said three men slept in one king-sized bed, while she and two other women slept in another.
"I was on the edge of the bed and I was asleep and at one point I feel someone sneak in behind me in the bed," the athlete said. She said that she realized it was Foley, and that the coach "reached his left arm over my body and put his fingers inside me."
"I just laid there," she said. "I remember just laying there in shock. It happened for a while and it just stopped and he got up and left."
That same athlete said that later, after she had made the team, that Foley started to kiss her after she left a post-race event. She didn’t feel that she could stop him in the moment — as he controlled if and when she could compete.
“He stops and I’m like, ‘I’m leaving. This is super inappropriate,’” the athlete said, via ESPN. “I said, ‘This should not be happening. You’re a coach, I’m an athlete. You’re married!’”
Foley approached her years later, she said, and whispered in her ear, “I still remember how you were breathing.”
“I knew. I knew exactly what the f*** he was talking about,” she said, via ESPN. “It gave me chills. It brought me back to being 19. What compels someone to think or say that?”
A former employee, Lindsey Sine Nikola, told ESPN that Foley both coerced her into taking nude photos and then sexually assaulted her at a World Cup race in 2008.
At that event, Foley invited Nikola to stay at one of the team houses — a request she thought was “normal” at the time. Foley, though, intended for the two of them to sleep in the same room. After one of the races was delayed due to weather, Foley asked if Nikola wanted to do a photo shoot — as he is an avid photographer. After showing her some of his other work, Foley then allegedly asked to photograph Nikola sitting in a bed with her bare back visible. She agreed, because she said she “felt stuck” and didn’t want to seem difficult.
Eventually, she said Foley kept pressuring her to take more and more off until she was totally nude.
Later during that same event, Nikola said that after she had gone to bed Foley came into the room and “crawls in my bed.” After Foley asked to “do something physical with me,” Nikola told him no and moved away from him in the bed.
“Then he started to touch me physically,” Nikola said, via ESPN. “I was stunned because I said no and there he is with his hands on me, touching me under my clothes and I'm frozen," she said. "I just kind of mentally shrunk within myself and waited for it to be over."
Nikola said that Foley eventually rolled her over and ejaculated on her back before he went to bed.
“I remember saying, ‘You’re an a**hole,'” she told ESPN.
Two others told ESPN that Foley once followed them into an elevator and pinned them up against a wall and tried to kiss them.
"Peter has her pinned up against the wall," she told ESPN. "He'd been drinking. She's like, 'Foley, stop. Stop it.' He's trying to kiss her and he has her pinned. We run out and we're trying to get away and he's like, 'I'm coming with you,' and I'm like, 'No.'"
Foley, the two women said, eventually gave up and left.
Foley accused during Beijing Olympics
Allegations first surfaced against Foley during the Beijing Olympics. Callan Chythlook-Sifsof, who was on the team from 2005-14, made allegations in an Instagram post where she tagged the U.S. Ski and Snowboard team, Foley and current Olympian Hagen Kearney.
Chythlook-Sifsof accused Foley of taking “naked photos of female athletes for over a decade” and said Kearney used the N-word repeatedly and deliberately.
Chythlook-Sifsof said she faced racism and sexism regularly during her time with the team, and that Foley rewarded those athletes who did so. She has submitted her allegations to SafeSport.
"I see him doing weird grooming stuff with the next generation of athletes," Chythlook-Sifsof said, via ESPN. "I've been focused on how, over the long term, am I going to do something about Foley and change coaching with the hope that maybe things will be different."
