The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet told about a woman who was a victim of sexual abuse. Moa Hjelmer said that she was a victim of the same perpetrator earlier in Helsinki.
A sprinter Moa Helmets opened the conversation that shocked Swedish sports in 2017, when he first talked about his experiences in Helsinki in 2011.
At the time, Hjelmer was in Helsinki competing in the Finland-Sweden national track and field match. Hjelmer later said that a teammate had raped him in the team’s hotel after the final banquet of the international match.
Hjelmer shared his experience in his Instagram update in connection with the #Metoo campaign, which became an international phenomenon in the fall of 2017.
Bridge weekly Swedish newspaper The evening paper has told about the experiences of a foreign athlete he calls “Julia”. Julia claimed that her coach “Thomas” sexually abused her for two and a half years.
About Julia and Thomas, their real names are not used in Aftonbladet’s articles.
Swedish newspaper reveals that the coach Julia claims repeatedly raped her is the same person Moa Hjelmer claims raped her in 2011.
According to Aftonbladet, Thomas moved from Sweden to another country in 2017 – that is, the same year when Hjelmer told about his experience. At that time, Thomas still continued his sports career and also started working as a coach.
At that time, Thomas became Julia’s coach. Julia’s goal was to compete at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and she knew that to achieve that she would need Thomas’ coaching.
The things Julian told Aftonbladet about Thomas’ activities are harsh reading.
“I know exactly what happened. It’s hard to explain or magnify how difficult it is to get people to believe that an adult person can be a victim of abuse for such a long time,” says Julia.
A woman according to the story, the man had a strong position of power over her. The man repeatedly made hotel reservations so that he and the woman shared a room.
The man was also responsible for the costs of camps and competition trips abroad and expected favors from the woman in return.
The coach asked Julia, among other things, to babysit when he took his wife out to eat or market supplements on his behalf.
According to the woman, the man raped her for the first time during a meeting abroad in a hotel. Later, after the rape, the woman said she called the doctor.
“I was bleeding for three or four days. I missed important exercises at the time, but I was most afraid that he had broken something inside me,” the woman told the Swedish newspaper.
Julia finally sought help from an organization in his home country that works for the safety of sports.
Thomas admitted to the organization that he had had sex with Julia, but claimed it was consensual. The organization considered Julia’s version of the events to be credible and banned the man from sports for life.
Aftonbladet could not reach Thomas to comment on Julia’s story. In an interview he gave to the local newspaper of his current place of residence, the man has denied the accusations of abuse.
Hjelmer, who according to what he said was a victim of the same perpetrator, has never reported the rape to the police. He says that he thought about it for a while, but in the end didn’t do it, because in the end it would have been just “word for word” when dealing with the case.
The coronavirus the postponed Tokyo Olympics were finally held in 2021, and Julia was able to compete there.
Julia also said that she had previously received a message from Moa Hjelmer, who had said that they had similar experiences with Thomas.
“When he sent the message, I was sorry that someone else had had to experience something similar. But I soon became angry, because it was known in certain circles in Sweden that he [Thomas] was problematic. Why didn’t anyone say anything? Thinking about it makes me crazy,” Julia told Aftonbladet.