USOC Chairman Larry Probst. (Ker Robertson/Getty Images)
BOSTON (WBZ-AM) -- With the Winter Olympics opening in South Korea, there is renewed focus by the US Olympic Committee on Dr. Larry Nassar, the disgraced gymnastics doctor sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting athletes while working with the US Women's team.
Larry Probst, Chairman of the USOC Board of Directors, says an independent investigation will take a hard look at not only who knew what and when about Nassar, but also what might have been done with that information.
"We are far from unscathed," Probst said. "There's been a tremendous amount of criticism about the USOC. We think that we did what we were supposed to do. Could we have done more? Of course. You can always do more."
Probst says that, once they know what went wrong, they will take appropriate action.
"The moment of reckoning that we are experiencing in the United States is extremely painful on many levels, and most especially for the women involved," Probst said.
"The Olympic system in the United States failed these athletes," he added.
Nassar's been sentenced to as much as 175 years in prison for sexual assault, and was also sentenced on federal child pornography charges and abuse of young women and girls while he worked at Michigan State University.
Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators in Washington, DC called for a select committee to investigate the USOC and US Olympics.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Ben Parker reports