Anastasia Pagonis was so furious she couldn’t sleep. She’d lay awake at night in disbelief that this had happened — that the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee had let another life be ruined.
If only they’d listened to her. If only they’d done something when she told them what happened between her and Robert Griswold. Instead, they’d let him hurt more people, destroy more lives.
Welcome to Silent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic Swimming, episode one: The Rescue.
It was the summer of 2022 when Laura and Aaron sensed that something might be seriously wrong with their son, Parker Egbert, a rising star on the U.S. Paralympic swimming team.
Parker had just returned home early from the Para Swimming World Championships in Portugal after testing positive for COVID, but that’s not why his parents were worried from afar. He had lost 20 pounds, started refusing showers, struggled with bowel movements, developed rashes, and broken his phone during his first six months living at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Parker has autism that limits his mental capacity to about a first-grade level, but he had no prior history of angry outbursts or bowel issues. He follows a strict routine due to his autism, and is meticulous about bathing.
In July of 2022, Laura and Aaron’s suspicions were confirmed when Parker shared a story he had written about a group of friends who were “brave” in defeating “a powerful hurricane named Hurricane Robert.” He told his parents that “the hurricane is Robert” — presumably referencing his roommate, Robert Griswold, a two-time Tokyo Paralympic gold medalist and world record holder who served as his primary caretaker in both Colorado Springs and Tokyo.
Parker revealed bits and pieces of the physical abuse he said he endured over the previous seven months of living with Griswold. But what Parker’s parents didn’t know at the time was Griswold allegedly threatened his family and said that the police would come for him if Parker told anyone about the sexual abuse he was suffering. Griswold, who has cerebral palsy, was 25 years old at the time — Parker was 19.
Laura took a trip out to the Training Center and confronted head coach Nathan Manley about the suspected mistreatment. She claims Manley was dismissive, attempting to assuage her concerns by noting that Griswold was getting married the following month and moving out of the Training Center. Manley allegedly said Griswold would now be “Abbie’s problem,” referring to his soon-to-be wife.
Griswold did indeed get married to Abbie Newland and move out of the Training Center in August of 2022, but he returned regularly to train. The abuse allegedly continued in the locker room showers, and Parker lcould no longer hide his pain. During a Facetime call with his parents, Parker disclosed how Griswold would repeatedly rape him in the Training Center showers.
It was sickening, but all of a sudden, everything began to add up for Laura and Aaron: Parker’s broken phone, his refusal to shower, his “Hurricane Robert” story... Finally understanding the full extent of their son’s abuse, they sprung into action: Aaron called a family friend in Boulder to pick up Parker from the Training Center while Laura drove 1,000 miles through the night from Iowa to Colorado to rescue her son.
Laura met Parker at their family friend’s place in Boulder before they retrieved the rest of his belongings from the Training Center. Then Laura brought Parker back home to Iowa, completing a 2,000-mile trek in just about 48 hours. She reported the incident to the police, but amid the chaos, Parker wasn’t brought in for a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner — more commonly known as a SANE exam — until August 25, 2022, just outside the five-day window from the last reported sexual assault on August 19. Other evidence existed, though, including Parker being diagnosed with anal fissure and undergoing rectal surgery.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee — USOPC for short — said the organization learned of the accusations of sexual abuse against Griswold from Laura on August 21. The USOPC said it alerted both Colorado Springs police and the U.S. Center for SafeSport, removed Griswold from the Training Center, and suspended him from the national team. But two years later, justice has not been served in the eyes of the Egberts.
Griswold is temporarily suspended while SafeSport’s investigation remains ongoing two years later, rendering him ineligible for the 2024 Paralympics this week in Paris. However, Colorado Springs police chose not to pursue criminal charges against him last year, citing a lack of witnesses and corroborating evidence.
Unless the Colorado Springs police reopen their inactive investigation, the Egberts’ last hope for meaningful accountability lies in their civil lawsuit against Griswold and the USOPC, which is slowly moving through the court system in Colorado. They’re accusing the USOPC of gross negligence for allowing Griswold to room with Parker in both Tokyo and Colorado Springs despite a history of predatory behavior that included an appearance in SafeSport’s disciplinary database back in September of 2020 for allegations of misconduct. More on that later.
When I broke the news of the allegations against Griswold in October of 2022, his lawyer told me that he “vehemently denies any wrongdoing.” U.S. Paralympics Swimming did not respond to a request for comment at first. But after the USOPC made national headlines for being named in the Egberts’ civil litigation the next month, U.S. Para Swimming placed director Erin Popovich and head coach Nathan Manley on leave amid an internal investigation. Both were cleared of wrongdoing a couple months later, but only Popovich returned to her role because Manley was discovered to have violated a USOPC policy that was “not related to these allegations specifically.” Neither leader was named in the USOPC’s public statement, and Manley resurfaced as a head coach at a Division III college this summer.
Over the next few episodes, we’ll closely examine whether any warning signs were ignored, how Colorado Springs police handled the criminal investigation based on their 70-page report, and why the civil lawsuit has become so contentious this summer. Before we get into all that, let’s rewind for some more background on the main characters involved here.
For Parker Egbert, the water was his sanctuary. Growing up with a neurodevelopmental disorder, he received over 40 hours a week of therapy starting at just 18 months old and didn’t begin talking until age 6. His tendency to shriek instead of communicate verbally made it tough for the Egberts to bring him to public swimming pools. So they built Parker his own pool in their backyard in South Carolina, teaching him to swim at age 12 after seeing how much he enjoyed the water.
Parker was a natural. He progressed from his local YMCA to the competitive Team Greenville club program an hour and a half away, where Laura would drive him six days a week. In 2019 — just his fourth year of competitive swimming — Parker won all eight of his events at a meet in Cincinnati to qualify for the U.S. Paralympic National Team. By the time he was a junior at Emerald High School in 2020, he finished 2nd in the 200 freestyle and 3rd in the 100 backstroke at the South Carolina state championship meet — not in a Para division, but among all athletes.
Around that same time in the fall of 2020, Robert Griswold’s name appeared in SafeSport’s disciplinary database for the first time under unspecified allegations of misconduct. A bronze medalist in the 100 backstroke at the Rio 2016 Paralympics, Griswold had been living in Colorado Springs for about six months because he took a one-week trip to the Paralympic Training Center right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March of 2020, stranding him there.
One day in September of 2020, blind swimmer Anastasia Pagonis asked Griswold if he would help take her new guide dog, a labrador named Radar, out for a walk. Pagonis reported to U.S. Para Swimming leadership that Griswold grabbed her butt while in the elevator and later sent a text message saying, “I just want to fuck.” Griswold told investigators he never sent that message, but Pagonis preserved a screenshot for USOPC officials. Griswold was 24 at the time — Pagonis just 16.
Still, Griswold was removed from SafeSport’s disciplinary database just a month later, allowing him to compete at the U.S. Paralympic Swimming Trials in June of 2021. There in Minneapolis, according to the Egberts’ lawsuit, Griswold made an effort to befriend Parker and constantly called him his “little buddy.” They both swam the 100-meter backstroke — Parker winning the S14 category and Griswold taking the S8 title just a few tenths shy of the world record in the event. Classes S1-S10 are for different degrees of physical disabilities, S11-S13 are for visual impairments, and S14 is for intellectual impairment.
At the Tokyo Paralympics in late August, Griswold broke the world record in the 100 backstroke S8 with a time of 1:02.55, capturing the gold medal by more than four seconds. He added another Paralympic gold medal in the 100 butterfly while also placing 4th in the 200 IM and 5th in the 400 freestyle, earning $75,000 from the USOPC.
Parker placed 12th in the S14 100 backstroke, just ahead of roommate Lawrence Sapp. Investigators later hear that Sapp may have witnessed Griswold sexually assaulting Parker in Tokyo and punched a wall out of anger, which got Sapp — not Griswold — in trouble with their coaches. The staff included just one personal care assistant for the entire team.
When the Tokyo Paralympics ended in early September, Griswold’s contact with Parker continued. The Egberts’ lawsuit revealed that Griswold would frequently text and call Parker, telling him that he was his best friend and sharing how much he missed and loved him. Griswold allegedly mentioned the possibility of Parker moving to the Training Center and advised the USOPC to approach the Egberts about the idea.
Parker won three gold medals and a silver at the Para Swimming National Championships in December of 2021. The next month, he moved into the Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs with Griswold as his roommate. The Egberts were never informed by the USOPC about the allegations of sexual misconduct against Griswold.
Griswold went on to win six medals in seven events at the 2022 World Championships in Madeira, Portugal. The New Jersey native also campaigned for one of five spots on the Athletes Advisory Group for Para Swimming, becoming the only American elected to the panel. According to several sources, Griswold carried so much influence in the para swimming world in part because he helped create the algorithm that decided U.S. Paralympic roster selections and relay lineups.
Anastasia Pagonis, now herself a Paralympic champion and world record holder in the 400 freestyle S11, learned about Griswold’s latest accusations after his second SafeSport suspension in August of 2022.
“I reported what he did to me to everyone that I was supposed to, but no one believed me,” Pagonis posted on Instagram. “(his word against mine, and the whispers…She wanted it, She asked for it, look what She posts on social media etc) and then he strikes others again and again and so so much worse. I feel so much pain for the other victims because it could have been prevented if they just believed me. I’m not a liar this could have all been prevented if they just listened to me. Nobody listened no one cared. I can’t even sleep or function because he hurt someone else and the people who allowed this to happen to others don’t give a fuck and keep allowing this person to go on destroying more lives. Why didn’t you believe me???
**my family, friends and boyfriend never doubted me, just not the people put in the situation to protect me
#SexualAssault #MeToo”
Pagonis is competing at her second Paralympics this week in Paris as one of the faces of Team USA. Parker, on the other hand, is still too traumatized to get back in the water.
For a sneak peek at the content coming in episode 2, visit our website, SilentCurrents.com, to check out a redacted copy of the Colorado Springs police department’s 70-page police report.
