Simone Biles won the all-around final at the 2018 World Gymnastics Championships in Doha. (Photo: KARIM JAAFAR, AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 USA Gymnastics has not voluntarily given up its status as the sport’s national governing body, triggering a hearing that could lead to the organization's demise. 
 
 In a statement Wednesday, U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland said she is moving forward with the process to revoke USA Gymnastics' NGB status. The next step is to select the three-person panel to hear the USOC's complaint against USA Gymnastics. 
 
 The panel will be chaired by a USOC board member and have representatives from the NGB and athlete advisory councils. USA Gymnastics will have the opportunity to “present factual evidence and legal argument regarding the allegations of the complaint,” the bylaws state. 
 
 After the hearing, the panel will issue a report and make a recommendation to the USOC’s board of directors. The board then makes the final decision. 
 
 There is no timeframe in the USOC bylaws for the process, and Hirshland said it could take "several weeks, perhaps a few months." 
 
 "As I’ve said before, the path is not crystal clear, but our motives are – put simply, to ensure the NGB for gymnastics in the United States is the type of organization each gymnast and the coaches, trainers and club owners who support them, deserve," Hirshland wrote in an open letter to the gymnastics community. 
 
 The move does not come as a complete surprise. Despite being informed by the USOC on Nov. 5 that it was beginning the process to revoke its NGB status, known as a Section 8 complaint, USA Gymnastics has continued to operate as if it plans to be around for the long-term. 
 
 Earlier this week, it announced it was seeking nominations for its board of directors. In an open letter published Tuesday, board chair Karen Golz said USA Gymnastics was progressing in its search for a new CEO. 
 
 "As we’ve said before, this is a situation in which there are no perfect solutions," Hirshland said Wednesday. "Seeking to revoke recognition is not a decision that the USOC came to easily, but we continue believe it is the right action." 
 
 USA Gymnastics will continue to operate as usual so long as the revocation process is ongoing. Should it be stripped of its NGB status, the USOC would take control of the elite programs until a new NGB is identified. 
 
 USA Gymnastics could continue to exist, but its members would likely migrate to whatever new group becomes the NGB. 
 
 The USOC is known to have revoked NGB status or cut off funding only three times, with taekwondo, team handball and modern pentathlon. But Hirshland said earlier this month that the USOC had no choice but to step in with USA Gymnastics because of its repeated missteps in trying to move beyond the Larry Nassar scandal. 
 
 Nassar, the longtime team physician for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State, is serving an effective life sentence after pleading guilty to child pornography and sexual abuse charges. More than 350 girls and young women have said he abused them under the guise of medical treatment, including Olympic gold medalists Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, Gabby Douglas, Jordyn Wieber, Kyla Ross and Madison Kocian. 
 
 USA Gymnastics has been through three CEOs since Rachael Denhollander told The Indianapolis Star in September 2016 that Nassar had abused her, prompting hundreds of other women to come forward. Steve Penny was forced out by the USOC in March 2017. Kerry Perry resigned under pressure in September after being roundly criticized during her nine-month tenure for being both aloof and inept. 
 
 Mary Bono lasted just five days after heavy criticism from Biles and other gymnasts about her fitness to lead and what message her hiring sent to survivors. Bono previously worked at Faegre Baker Daniels, a law firm the IndyStar said had helped USA Gymnastics craft a cover story for Nassar after he was fired. 
 
 Bono worked for the firm’s consulting arm and was not part of the discussions with Nassar. But the association was considered tone deaf. 
 
 The federation also remains mired in mediation with survivors. It has lost all of its major sponsors, and its national championships were held in August without a title sponsor, almost unheard of for one of the premier Olympic sports in the United States. 
 
 And in what was the final straw for the USOC, USA Gymnastics said it recently located medical records from the Karolyi ranch that two executives had told Congress were nowhere to be found. Penny, who ordered the removal of the records, was indicted in Walker County, Texas, in September, on a count of tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony. 
 
 USA Gymnastics has defended itself by saying its board inherited “an organization in crisis” when it was seated in June, and said it is taking steps to reform. It finally parted ways last week with Ron Galimore, the longtime chief operating officer who, according to emails obtained by IndyStar, helped provide the cover story for Nassar. 
 
 But the moves might have come too late. ||||| CLOSE USA Gymnasts Aly Raisman and Jordyn Weiber addressed their abuser, Larry Nassar, at his sentence hearing. USA TODAY Sports 
 
 Former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar arrives at Ingham County Circuit Court on Nov. 22 in Lansing, Mich. (Photo: JEFF KOWALSKY, AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 The top leadership of USA Gymnastics’ board of directors resigned Monday following days of withering public criticism by women who accused Larry Nassar of sexually abusing them and the federation of being indifferent and slow to make changes that will protect young gymnasts in the future. 
 
 Chairman Paul Parilla, vice chairman Jay Binder and treasurer Bitsy Kelley submitted their resignations effective immediately. The remaining board members, which include five athlete representatives, will select an interim chair until a permanent replacement is found. 
 
 “We support their decisions to resign at this time,” Kerry Perry, who took over as president and CEO of USA Gymnastics on Dec. 1, said in a statement announcing the resignations. 
 
 “We believe this step will allow us to more effectively move forward in implementing change within our organization.” 
 
 The announcement comes as Nassar’s sentencing hearing continues in a Michigan courtroom. More than 140 girls and women, including Olympic champions Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, Gabby Douglas and Jordyn Wieber, have said they were sexually abused by the longtime USA Gymnastics and Michigan State team physician. 
 
 The move was hailed by U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun. 
 
 Blackmun and USOC chairman Larry Probst had called Parilla to USOC headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Jan. 11 and told him he needed to resign, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting who are not authorized to discuss it because of the sensitivity of the issue. 
 
 "New board leadership is necessary because the current leaders have been focused on establishing that they did nothing wrong. USA Gymnastics needs to focus on supporting the brave survivors," Blackmun said in a statement. 
 
 "The Olympic family failed these athletes and we must continue to take every step necessary to ensure this never happens again.” 
 
 Raisman has been particularly forceful in her criticism of USA Gymnastics, calling it an organization that is “rotting from the inside” during her victim statement to Nassar last week. 
 
 “To believe in the future of gymnastics is to believe in change. But how are we to believe in change when these organizations aren’t even willing to acknowledge the problem?” Raisman said in court. “It’s easy to put out statements talking about how athlete care is the highest priority. But they’ve been saying that for years, and all the while, this nightmare was happening. 
 
 “False assurances from organizations are dangerous, especially when people want so badly to believe them. They make it easier to move away from the problem and enable bad things to continue to happen. And even now after all that has happened, USA Gymnastics has the nerve to say the very same things it has said all along. Can’t you see how disrespectful that is? Can’t you see how much that hurts?” 
 
 USA Gymnastics has been criticized for not having more oversight over Nassar, who would enter athletes’ rooms unaccompanied at competitions and monthly training camps at the Karolyi ranch under the guise of treatment. 
 
 “To this day, I still don’t know how he could have been allowed to do this for so long,” Wieber said last week in court. “Nobody was protecting us from being taken advantage of. Nobody was even concerned whether or not we were being sexually abused. I was not protected, and neither were my teammates.” 
 
 Not until Biles said she didn't want to return to the Karolyi ranch, where she and several others said they were abused, did USA Gymnastics cut ties there. The federation announced Thursday it would no longer hold training camps there. 
 
 Even then, however, the federation found itself on the defensive after the the Indianapolis Star reported it still planned to hold trials for the acro world championships there next month. USA Gymnastics announced Friday that the trials would be relocated. 
 
 USA Gymnastics also has been criticized for not being more aggressive in acknowledging and addressing a culture within the sport that critics say enabled the abuse. Former CEO and president Steve Penny, who was forced to resign last month, was the only person to be held publicly accountable until Monday's resignations. 
 
 Parilla, Binder and Kelly had resisted calls that they resign, even after former federal prosecutor Deborah Daniels said board members should not serve longer than two, four-year terms. 
 
 Parilla had been on the board since 1999. Binder first joined the board in 2002 and served until 2007, then rejoined in 2009. Kelley has been on the board since November 2007. 
 
 Nassar became USA Gymnastics’ team physician in 1996, and has acknowledged abusing athletes under the guise of medical treatment. He was dismissed by the federation in July 2015, after a coach overheard athletes talking about the abusive procedure and became concerned. 
 
 But USA Gymnastics did not notify the FBI for five weeks, conducting its own investigation first. Even after it turned the case over to the FBI, it did not notify Michigan State or authorities in Michigan, despite knowing that Nassar was still working there. 
 
 The allegations against Nassar became public in August 2016, when Rachel Denhollander contacted the Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network, and said she’d been abused by Nassar. That led to dozens more accusations, along with the revelation that athletes had reported Nassar to Michigan State as early as 1997. 
 
 Nassar has already been sentenced to 60 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal child pornography charges. He faces another 125 years after pleading guilty to state charges of sexually assaulting seven girls. 
 
 Contributing: Christine Brennan
– USA Gymnastics has refused to give up its status at the sport's national governing body, so the US Olympic Committee has started what could be a months-long process to force it out. The USOC first moved to decertify USA Gymnastics earlier this month, saying the organization had failed to make the right changes after the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal. The USOC says USA Gymnastics declined the option to voluntarily relinquish its status and instead asked questions about the hearing process, the New York Times reports. "This is a situation in which there are no perfect solutions," USOC chief executive Sarah Hirshland said in a statement. "Seeking to revoke recognition is not a decision that the USOC came to easily, but we continue to believe it is the right action." "The path is not crystal clear, but our motives are ... to ensure the NGB for gymnastics in the United States is the type of organization each gymnast and the coaches, trainers and club owners who support them, deserve," Hirshland said. Her next step will be to select a three-person panel with representatives from USOC's board of directors, the National Governing Bodies Council and the Athletes' Advisory Council to review the complaint and make a recommendation to the full USOC board, USA Today reports. USA Gymnastics, which is still seeking a new CEO, will remain the sport's governing body during the process. (A former USA Gymnastics president has been charged with evidence-tampering in the Nassar case.)