Famed gymnastics coach Al Fong barred from gym after abuse, misconduct allegations
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- SafeSport suspended Al Fong five years and Armine Barutyan-Fong one year.
- SafeSport cited multiple misconduct claims and ordered no-contact and education.
- Fong vows arbitration and denies wrongdoing while GAGE faces reputational risk.
Search the name “Al Fong,” and at least two things pop up.
First, there’s the multitude of Olympic gymnasts he’s mentored at his Blue Springs gym since 1979. Then, there are the two gymnasts who died under his tutelage in the 1980s, Julissa Gomez and Christy Henrich.
Throughout the years, Fong, 73, has denied any wrongdoing in those cases. And those denials continue into 2026 amid more recent allegations of misconduct and abuse that last month led to a ruling prohibiting him from coaching until December 2030.
Fong and wife/co-coach Armine Barutyan-Fong have both been suspended by the United States Center for SafeSport, which addresses abuse claims, for allegations of physical and emotional misconduct.
The couple own Great American Gymnastics Express Center, or GAGE Center, in Blue Springs. GAGE is considered one of the top gymnastics clubs in the country and has produced several Kansas City-area national team members, world medalists and Olympians over the past few decades.
Fong is suspended for five years and Barutyan-Fong one year, according to SafeSport’s database. SafeSport does not specify details of such allegations, refusing to comment on particular cases in order “to maintain the integrity of the investigative process,” a spokesperson told The Star.
An investigation is opened when a “preponderance of the evidence” determines it is “more likely than not” that abuses/and or misconduct occurred. In the case of Fong and his wife, along with probation from coaching, both suspensions — handed down Dec. 22 — outline such remediation as “education” and a “no contact directive.”
In his first public comments since the suspensions were handed down, Fong said this week that he had been hesitant to speak about the investigation. The inquiry began in 2019, according to Fong, who noted that he and his attorney had been seeking arbitration in an attempt to get SafeSport to reverse its decision.
Fong said he requested a stay to delay the suspension but was denied in a matter of days.
The prospect of a possible suspension never crossed his mind, he said.
“Like someone threw me up against the wall and punched me in the stomach 10 times,” he told The Star, adamant that he has not abused anyone in his nearly 50-year career.
“I didn’t know what to expect, honestly, but it had gone on so long.”
Fong declined to specify the nature of the allegations or identify complainants, beyond confirming that the accusations were unrelated to either Gomez or Henrich. In the case ruled upon last month, SafeSport’s probe found 40 alleged complaints of verbal, physical or emotional abuse, according to a 2023 report by the Orange County Register.
Fong said that during the investigation that number was whittled down to five.
The Gomez and Henrich situations
In 1988, Gomez suffered a broken neck and was instantly paralyzed while performing a Yurchenko vault during the World Sports Fair in Japan.
That was just before the 1988 Olympic trials, and Gomez later succumbed to her injuries. Fong has long denied allegations that he pressured her to perform the move.
Henrich, meanwhile, suffered from anorexia nervosa after an Olympic judge said she was too heavy to make the 1988 U.S. team at 93 pounds. She later died from multiple-organ failure in 1994. Fong denied allegations that he critiqued her weight, stating that he stopped coaching her because of her illness.
Fong stepped away from coaching elite gymnasts for years after Henrich’s death. In the early 2000s he returned to coaching top-level athletes, including Olympic silver medalists Terin Humphrey and Courtney McCool.
Parents react to suspension
Fong has played host to many international coaches and athletes at GAGE in Blue Springs and also shares his gymnastics techniques online.
His aim, he said, is to improve the culture around the sport. He said that culture was previously wrought with mistreatment and abuse, whereas he and his wife preach core values of respect, honesty, trust and fun, as well as safety, he said.
Some parents of current GAGE athletes ages 12 and 13 were shocked to learn of the suspensions before a recent morning training session. They said they researched the backgrounds of Fong and his wife, including talking to past parents and gymnasts, before enrolling their kids.
Once their young athletes were in the program, the parents watched the coaching couple improve their daughters’ skills through consistent affirmation and instruction. One parent expressed concern for how news of the suspension would affect the development of GAGE’s current gymnasts.
“The next five years are our most crucial — like, we are in real-time right now,” parent Yvette Maddaloni said.
The Maddaloni family moved from New York to Blue Springs just a few months after watching Fong and Barutyan-Fong coach at a tournament in Pennsylvania in 2022.
“I think we all came here with the same goal, the same dreams for the girls: national team, national elites, college gymnastics, all of that,” said another parent, Anne Guerrero.
Guerrero’s family moved to the Kansas City area from North Dakota after talking with other gymnasts and parents, including the mother of Blue Valley High School grad and U.S. Olympian Leanne Wong.
Parents who spoke to The Star this week echoed Fong’s sentiment about the former culture surrounding gymnastics. As for Fong, a few parents said they believed he evolved with the times. Several parents regarded GAGE as the safest gym facility in which their daughters trained.
For now, at least, Fong and Fong-Barutyan can no longer enter their own gym or interact with gymnasts who train there. But Fong said the business remains solid and can sustain itself thanks to its well-established system, coaching staff and directors.
Away from the current rumblings at GAGE, where Fong remains popular, news of the suspensions seemed to elicit at least some satisfaction online, including from a recent GAGE gymnast.
Amelia Disidore, a member of the U.S. Senior National Team in 2023-24 and now a freshman at the University of Florida, posted a TikTok with a screenshot of the suspensions in the SafeSport database. It was accompanied by a caption reading, “It’s about time #karma.”
Disidore and her sister Gabby, a junior teammate on the Gators gymnastics team, trained at GAGE.
As Fong digs in to fight SafeSport’s ruling, he holds firm to the notion that he’s helping make the sport better.
“We spent many, many years doing the right thing to make gymnastics better, educate the coaches to create an environment that’s conducive to safety for everybody,” he said, “from the gymnast to the parents to the coaches — the people who love gymnastics.
“And we’ve done that over and over again. We just thought, I mean, we’ve had great responses from people, from here in this country and all over the world, too, and still continue to today, even though this is a dark, dark cloud over my head right now.”
This story was originally published January 16, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
