25 years after being sexually abused by coach, Olympian Allison Forsyth settles lawsuit with Alpine Canada

Only now, some 25 years after being sexually abused by her former national team coach, and as she prepares for her 45th birthday, is former Canadian alpine skier Allison Forsyth remembering who she was before her life was thrown into disarray. 

As Forsyth was ascending to the pinnacle of her sport , she says the trust she placed in coach Bertrand Charest was abused in the most egregious of ways. Forsyth says she was sexually abused over two years in 1997 and 1998 while on the national team and in 2019 sued Alpine Canada, skiing's governing body in Canada, and Charest.

On Tuesday, it was announced a settlement had been reached. Terms were not disclosed.

For Forsyth, the settlement will help close a chapter that consumed most of her life and sent her spinning into darkness for nearly three decades.

"I've been in a coping spiral and applied coping mechanisms since 1998. For 17 to 18 years I have had complete personality shifts, extreme eating disorders, fear of judgment, deep rooted insecurity, and a lack of confidence," Forsyth said in an exclusive interview with CBC Sports. "It took me 44 years to get to know who I actually am. I've lost 25 of them, working through who I was before to who I am now.

"Alpine Canada and fellow survivors, we now know what happened. There is no denying it. This was not consensual relationships with young women and their coach." 

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Six years ago, Charest was found guilty of 37 sex-related charges involving nine women in the 1990s who were aged between 12 and 19 when the crimes took place. He was initially sentenced to 12 years but had it reduced to 57 months on appeal and in 2020 he was granted parole.

Charest was never criminally