Olympian Track Coach Conrad Mainwaring arrested on sexual charges on his former athletes

A private track coach who works at various tracks in the West Los Angeles area has been arrested after he allegedly molested one of his male athletes under the guise of physical therapy and mental focus training, Los Angeles police said.

Conrad Avondale Mainwaring, 67, is charged with sexual battery by fraud. His arrest comes amid an ESPN investigation into allegations against Mainwaring made by 31 different men, dating as far back as the 1970s and as recently as 2016.

Former Olympic track athlete Conrad Mainwaring was arrested on one felony count of sexual battery on Wednesday amidst an ESPN investigation that reported more than 30 men were molested by the 67-year-old Los Angeles-based high school track and field coach.

The ESPN Outside The Lines report claims the abuse spanned over the course of 44 years, with the youngest alleged victim claiming abuse at age 14.

Los Angeles Police Department detective Sharlene Johnson said the alleged victim claimed Mainwaring molested him in 2016 by masquerading it as massage treatment in which he’d also touch his genitals. The LAPD only filed one charge against Mainwaring, and Johnson said that could be a result of the statute of limitations expiring on alleged victims from the ESPN report.

The 67-year-old Mainwaring competed for Antigua during the 1976 Olympics in the 100-meter hurdles and would use his status as an established track coach to coerce athletes. One alleged victim told ESPN that Mainwaring’s manipulation for treatment began with incentives like, “you can be an Olympian, too.” Victims in the ESPN story also claimed Mainwaring would convince them that control over their erections would affect their testosterone levels and improve their athletic performance.

Johnson, the LAPD detective, said Mainwaring was “using his position as a coach with athletes who are so focused and driven to be perfect at their craft that he was able to victimize them without them even realizing it.”

The alleged abuse allegedly occurred at American universities and summer camps, although Mainwaring was never an official employee in any of the allegations. Mainwaring was reported to law enforcement agencies and employers in both England and the United States, however, there is no record he was ever charged with a crime until now.

Thirty-one men — 16 of whom agreed to be named — described similar methods of abuse. They described Mainwaring using his Olympic credentials and relationships with accomplished athletes and expertise in psychology and physiology to persuade boys and young men to train with him. They said he initiated sexual contact under the guise of mental training that focused on getting them to control and manipulate erections and testosterone levels as a means of improving athletic performance.

The specific Los Angeles charge was precipitated by the Outside the Lines investigation. Over the past year, as word spread among victims about the reporting, a 22-year-old Southern California man contacted an ESPN journalist with his story. The man said he was 20 at the time and a college student when he trained with Mainwaring. After the interview, the journalist referred him to Los Angeles Police Department detectives, who already had begun looking into Mainwaring on tips from out of state.

The reported victims said Mainwaring convinced them that none of the acts was sexual, rather that they were “all clinical” and designed to make them superior athletes. One recalled Mainwaring telling him, “You can be an Olympian too, you know. You can get to this level.”

LAPD detective Sharlene Johnson said Mainwaring was “using his position as a coach with athletes who are so focused and driven to be perfect at their craft that he was able to victimize them without them even realizing it.”

Johnson said she was struck over the course of the police investigation that Mainwaring was able to avoid scrutiny for so many years. Among the challenges: The statute of limitations had expired by the time many of the reported victims decided to go public.

The reported victim in the LAPD case said Mainwaring administered what he called therapy to help the man’s performance as a runner in 2016. The treatment included massage and manipulation of the man’s genitals, an account that mirrors those of the other men interviewed by Outside the Lines.

Mainwaring competed at the 1976 Olympics for Antigua, now Antigua-Barbuda, where he was born. Later, he helped coach french hurdler Naman Keita and Dominican-born Felix Sanchez to Olympic gold medals at Athens in 2004 and London in 2012. Sanchez is not among Mainwaring’s accusers; he could not be reached for comment, but he said through a friend that he knew nothing of any inappropriate behavior by his former coach. Sanchez and Keita was not one of the men who accused him of abuse.

The reporting indicates the first allegations stemmed from about 1975 in England — where Mainwaring grew up — and continued over the next few years when he worked as a summer camp counselor in the United States. Over the following four decades, dozens of men allege, Mainwaring molested them at or near several American universities. read more