US Olympic swim champion, a rape survivor, fights abuse in sport

Three years after the trauma of being raped by a stranger while jogging outside a university campus, American swimmer Nancy Hogshead-Makar lit up the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles by winning three gold medals and a silver.

Today, the 57-year-old lawyer, mother and activist devotes her life towards the fight for gender equality and the battle against sexual abuse in sport.

In an interview with AFP ahead of International Women's Day on March 8, Hogshead-Makar says she remains "unrealistically optimistic" about her work and life in general.

"I guess you have to be in order to try to win in the Olympics and try to address sexual abuse in sports," Hogshead-Makar said.

"They're pretty audacious goals."
- 'Profoundly broken' -
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"Number one, everybody around me believed that it happened," she said. "Number two, people believed in the depth of my emotional harm. Nobody told me, 'Just get over it'."
- Gender equity -
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