DENVER (AP) — When Kirsten Hawkes, a one-time elite fencer, reached out to her childhood coach for advice about starting her own fencing club, their meeting turned awkward right away.
It began, she said, with an unwanted kiss on the lips when the two met at a bar during a fencing tournament in Minneapolis last October. A few hours later, as she and the coach were saying good-bye, Hawkes said he forcibly kissed her — “stuck his tongue in my mouth,” she told investigators.
Hawkes filed a complaint against the then-assistant coach with the U.S. Paralympic team to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, whose mandate is to combat sex abuse in Olympic sports. But it didn’t take long for her to realize she was pitted against not just the coach, but one of the most renowned sports attorneys in the United States.