Speedskater battles memories

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. – She makes direct eye contact and holds it. Her voice never wavers, even as she reveals painful details.

Chris Witty is still dealing with some ghosts, but the four-time Olympic speedskater hardly looks or sounds like a victim. Largely because she has decided to confront her demons – publicly.

Those demons date back more than 25 years to her childhood home in a Milwaukee suburb. It was there, she said, that a neighbor and family friend began molesting her at the age of 4.

She said the abuse lasted seven years. But it would take more than a decade longer for Witty to acknowledge what happened, first to herself and now, for the past year, to the rest of the world.

She felt compelled to talk about it.

“Because abuse of any kind thrives off of secrecy,” she said. “And that’s why it exists and why it will continue, so I just felt like if I started talking about it, maybe other people would talk about it and it can be prevented.”

Even as she has trained for the 2006 Olympics, Witty has made herself a living example of perseverance over child abuse. She has spoken throughout the country about her experience. As a 2002 Olympic gold medalist, she has become the most recognizable face for Atlanta-based Good Touch, Bad Touch, a program that educates children about abuse.

Witty sees value in telling her story, even if it helps only one child in need. Her message: Abuse has a name, and it’s not the victim’s fault.

“I think that’s the hardest thing to sort of take in,” she said. “Even now, I’m 30 and it’s still something I think about. Yeah, it really wasn’t my fault, so I don’t have to feel ashamed or guilty.”

Witty’s family didn’t know they had befriended a pedophile. Their neighbor, Clarence Platteter, had been convicted of molestation in 1976. He was sentenced to five years’ probation and psychiatric treatment.

When they were at work, Walter and Diane Witty liked having a neighbor to watch over Chris and her three brothers. Platteter, in his 60s, seemed almost grandfatherly, Witty said. At least, at first.

“He was almost like a family member, the kind of family friend that didn’t even really knock,” she said. “He just walked in and said, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ Both my parents worked, so if one of us lost our keys, he was the one who had the spare. And he took advantage of that privilege.”

Witty used sports to escape. She spent hours riding her bicycle, which eventually allowed her to get a newspaper route. She bought her first pair of ice skates with money raised from delivering papers.

She called sports her outlet. They were the part of her life she could control. They gave her a strength she lacked at home.

Yet, the real test of strength came away from sports.

In sixth grade, Witty saw a video in school about sexual abuse. It was as if she were seeing herself on the screen. The next time Platteter tried to touch her, Witty said, she told him no. He tried again. The second time she told him no, the abuse ended.

“All of a sudden, I knew what it was,” she said. “I knew it had a name. I knew it was wrong. I knew I could say no. The only thing I didn’t do was tell an adult.”

Platteter never was charged with abusing Witty. By the time she told her family of her ordeal, more than 15 years after it had ended, the statute of limitations had run out.

In 1996, however, Platteter pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault of a 4-year-old child. He served four years in prison.

Instead of relief, Witty said, she felt guilty. Maybe if she had told someone about her own abuse, she realized, she could have stopped Platteter from hurting someone else.

“I thought about it a lot,” she said. “I buried it a lot.”

Again, sports became her escape. She skated at the 1994 Olympics, and then again at the 1998 Olympics, where she won speedskating silver and bronze.

Before the 2002 Olympics, Witty learned that Platteter was free and living across the alley from her parents again. She tried to block out the memories, but they kept flooding over her.

Unable to handle it alone anymore, she confided in Keith Henschen, U.S. Speedskating’s sports psychologist. He told her to set it aside and concentrate on the Olympics. He made her promise to seek professional help after the games.

“He kind of lifted a weight off me,” Witty said. “It made it OK to just focus on the event, and I did that. Obviously, I did it well.”

Witty upset world-record holder Sabine Volker of Germany to win gold in the 1,000-meter race. She did it in a world-record time of 1 minute, 13.83 seconds.

A month later, she began seeing a therapist.

In 2004, she competed for the U.S. Cycling team at the Summer Games.

Then, last year, she publicly opened up about the abuse for the first time.

“That was the last step of healing,” she said. “The therapy helped, but there was still something eating at me. It needed to be talked about, and I just sort of felt the need to talk about it.”