Sport has many famous examples of child prodigies who were pushed by their parents. Golfer Tiger Woods is perhaps the most prominent. But the ongoing trial of Gjert Ingebrigtsen, father of double Olympic middle-distance running champion Jakob, for alleged physical and mental abuse of his son and another one of his children, forces the athletics world to reconsider what it means to safely parent children in sport.

Dr. Bettina Rulofs is a Professor for Diversity Studies in Sport at the German Sport University Cologne. In January, Rulofs co-authored a book titled "Child Abuse in Sport: Critical Perspectives," a topic Rulofs has researched and worked on for many years. The challenge in high performance environments is managing a balance between improving performance and staying safe and healthy. Rulofs believes the environment of elite sport makes that much harder.

"I think we have to be aware that the prevalence of psychological violence in sports in general is very high. We did a European study on the frequency and forms of abuse and violence in sport, and we found that 65% of our respondents indicated to have experienced one form of psychological violence in their sporting career," Rulofs explained about a survey that had more than 10,000 participants across five European countries.

"This shows that psychological violations seem to be part of the game in sports. We have to be aware of the situation that sport has a lot to do with the

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