Speedskater Bridie Farrell, ‘molested’ by Olympian Andy Gabel, says N.Y. law ‘doesn’t protect children’

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE, CHRISTIAN RED NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Andy Gabel had already won dozens of medals in international speed skating competitions, including a silver at the 1994 Olympics, when he moved to upstate Saratoga Springs to prepare for the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

Bridie Farrell was a star-struck 15-year-old with Olympic aspirations when Gabel arrived in her hometown — and she was thrilled when one of speed skating’s biggest stars took her under his wing.

But Farrell says that what began as a series of generous acts by Gabel — picking Farrell up at 5 a.m. every day for practice, offering her advice on such things as how to properly align her skates — culminated in an uncomfortable encounter on a dead-end street. Gabel, seated beside her in his parked car, asked Farrell if he could kiss her, she says.

She says the speed skating star, then in his 30s, repeatedly molested her in 1997 and 1998, sexual abuse that would leave her feeling lost and depressed years later.

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