Ashton Locklear has officially announced her retirement. Interestingly, she chose to post an official press release by her manager:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxiQLPPn_28/
The release said that Locklear did not have enough time to recover from her injuries – presumably, in order to have a chance to contend for a spot at the Tokyo Olympics. Locklear suffered a shoulder injury at the 2017 Worlds and had surgery in November 2017. In 2018, she also had knee surgery to fix the problem that has been bothering her for years and hoped to start training floor. She came back to competition this season and had a massive difficulty on beam but so far failed to earn scores that would qualify her to the US Classic. While often former national team members are invited to camps and can qualify there, Locklear went through a more formal way, competing at regular elite qualifiers.
In 2018, Locklear came forward as a survivor of abuse by Larry Nassar. In addition, she alleged she was verbally and physically abused by Qi Han, her former coach at Everest, and said this was the main reason she left his gym and moved to World Champions Center. However, there were also reports of SafeSport complaints about Locklear herself, alleging that she bullied her teammates both at Everest and on the national team. There was no official information on whether the investigation proceeded any further.
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