CULTURE OF FEAR TARNISHING GB OLYMPIC DREAMS
WITH 10 MONTHS TO TOKYO, SPORTSMAIL’S INVESTIGATION REVEALS BRITISH SPORTS ARE IN TURMOIL WITH SCANDALS PILING UP, ATHLETES SCARED TO SPEAK OUT AND EVEN WALKING AWAY
THERE is a room at the offices of UK Sport in central London they call ‘the performance lab’. A source says it is usually off limits, except to the most senior cogs of the machine, and that within it is a quirky secret.
It relates to a wall that isn’t a wall, or at least it wasn’t a couple of years back. It was covered in panelling, which could be removed to reveal lists of names and numbers that filled a space several metres wide.
Those dozens of names today would range from Dina AsherSmith, and other global gold medallists across 44 sports, down to those who have made major finals and might step up to the podium when the forthcoming summer and winter Olympics and Paralympics play out.
The wall is where their medal potential was tracked, result by result, an ever-changing graph of possibilities and returns for £365million of UK Sport investment. You could be invited into that room and never know the wall was there.
It’s an intriguing detail, a previously unknown snippet of their business of distributing Lottery money to Olympic programmes on the basis of which are most likely to deliver. But it is also sobering to think so many of those names could be replaced with others that tell the tale of collateral damage.
It is the increasingly loud elephant in the corner of that same room; the companion to Britain’s rise as an Olympic superpower in the 23 years since funding was introduced.
Anyone who still sees only glory in the transaction has really not been paying attention.
Athlete welfare is now part of the lexicon and British Gymnastics are the latest example of one of our Olympic programmes to become engulfed by scandal.
They add to the concerning list of sporting bodies who have faced allegations in the past four years, taking in para-swimming, rowing, canoeing, bobsleigh, archery, right back to cycling and accusations of sexism made by Jess Varnish in these pages in 2016.
Of them, cultures or climates of ‘fear’ were found in independent investigations into British Cycling (2017), British Swimming (2017) and British Canoeing (2020).
With the gymnastics storm still raging, and UK Sport due to reveal fresh welfare figures today, it seems an appropriate point to recall the soul- searching of 2017 and the subsequent 2018 ‘culture health check’ published by UK Sport, which found nearly one in three British Olympic and Paralympic athletes experienced or witnessed ‘unacceptable behaviour’ in their elite programme.
But is the situation getting better? Who is to blame? The coaches? The governing bodies who have frequently been accused of not listening to concerns? The UK Sport funding system that put such heavy pressure on those they backed, with the likelihood of funding cuts and job losses for missed medal targets?
Regimes have changed — notably at UK Sport — and gentler words have been pumped out. But still we hear the complaints of so many gymnasts past and present, and claims that their governing body did not do enough to act. And still we witness Olympic medallists quitting in despair, such as cyclist Callum Skinner and gymnast Amy Tinkler whose departures came after that 2018 watershed and both because of welfare concerns.
In attempting to assess the landscape, Sportsmail has interviewed key figures at UK Sport and individual governing bodies, as well as athletes and the British Athletes Commission (BAC), set up in 2004 to look after their interests. We also audited governing bodies from all 44 sports that receive funding from UK Sport.
At least nine governing bodies have received complaints related to welfare since 2018.
There have been no funding cuts made by UK Sport on the grounds of athlete welfare in the past two Olympic cycles.
Welfare cases brought to the BAC are rising year on year, with their chair Victoria Aggar saying: ‘I don’t think the situation has got worse since 2018 but fundamentally I don’t think it has got better.’
There is no requirement for governing bodies to inform UK Sport of complaints.
Athletes still fear repercussions for those who speak out.
‘Bullying is normal, but no one will say anything. it reminds me of a battered wife or bruised child situation because people are
terrified.’ Anonymous bobsledder to The guardian in 2017. If the ongoing gymnastics saga has taught us anything, it is that silence cannot be trusted.
With the benefit of what we learned from the brave athletes who came forward in the past two months, we can now better understand the omerta that conceals the alleged emotional and physical abuses by coaches in the name of sporting performance. from those bombshells and complaints, which extended this week to an investigation into the British Gymnastics female head coach Amanda Reddin, who refutes claims made against her, Sportsmail sought to explore the state of play at all 44 of GB’s Olympic sports.
Each was asked: how many complaints related to welfare had they received from national team athletes and age-grade national team athletes since the start of 2018; how many were upheld; how many welfare complaints were received from support staff and coaches from national teams of all ages; how many were upheld; are UK Sport notified of all complaints?
WE FOUND:
Only four governing bodies covering seven sports disclosed complaints and provided figures — Archery GB had three athlete complaints across their Olympic and para programmes, with one upheld; UK Athletics had two complaints from athletes and two from coaches in their Olympic and para divisions; short track speed skating had one athlete complaint that was not upheld; one athlete made a complaint within the equestrian and para-equestrian programme.
17 offered comment but did not disclose their figures (canoeing, para- canoeing, cycling, paracycling, diving, gymnastics, hockey, rowing, para-rowing, shooting, skeleton, swimming, paraswimming, triathlon, para-triathlon, disability shooting, wheelchair basketball). British Cycling, British Rowing, British Triathlon and British Wheelchair Basketball referred to ‘small’ or ‘low’ numbers.
Two did not respond (karate, sport climbing).
18 sports received no complaints ( badminton, para- badminton, boxing, wheelchair fencing, judo, VI judo, modern pentathlon, sailing, para-table tennis, taekwondo, para -taekwondo, boccia, para-powerlifting, wheelchair rugby, wheelchair tennis, curling, ski and snowboard, para-ski and snowboard).
While the above shows at least eight governing bodies received complaints, and it reaches nine when including British Gymnastics (Amy Tinkler, among others, says she made a complaint last year and retired Olympic medallist Louis Smith has spoken of a ‘culture of fear’), it was interesting that several cited confidentiality as a reason for not supplying data. That despite a request for raw numbers only.
Of further interest was an email written by the performance director of British Swimming, Chris Spice, which was brought to Sportsmail’s attention by a bemused source. In his capacity as the chair of the Performance Directors forum, Spice was said to have emailed colleagues at other sports with a damning assessment of Sportsmail's questions and a reminder to the effect that recipients were under no obligation to answer.
When this was put to British Swimming by Sportsmail, with the suggestion that it was a move of questionable transparency, they came back to say Spice was reflecting the views of other performance directors, and it was felt the ‘questions showed a lack of understanding of the area’.
And yet the questions seemed quite reasonable.
The difficulty with an audit, of course, is that numbers are vulnerable to interpretation and some sports have far more athletes than others. As Aggar told Sportsmail, a number of complaints might ‘ indicate a healthy internal reporting system’ and the opposite could be true of zero reports.
What we know is there is a discrepancy between what athletes
report and what they experience. it is necessary here to consider how many athletes have approached the Bac. in discussing the direction of travel, and whether the landscape has improved since mass attention came to the topic in 2017, aggar offered an insight on an area where few statistics are available.
She said: ‘We are actually seeing an uplift in cases and problems in the past couple of years. i try to counter that by saying it might be because athletes are trusting us more. That said, just this quarter we are dealing with up to 40 cases across a huge number of sports.
‘in balancing all that, i don’t think the situation has got worse since 2018, but fundamentally i don’t think it has got better. it is a very difficult area. High-performance sport can sometimes be uncomfortable and you have to push people out of their comfort zone. The problem is sometimes people lose sight of what is acceptable. i have seen too many athletes who have left the sport disillusioned, with low selfesteem and self- worth. That is devastating.’ ‘JUST move on and get on with having a baby.’ comment attributed to former British cycling technical director Shane Sutton by jess varnish in 2016 upon termination of her contract. Sutton denied it and it was not proved.
SPEakiNG up remains the major hurdle for a number of reasons.
Skinner, who has been outspoken on welfare issues since leaving cycling, told Sportsmail: ‘ if you lodge a complaint as an athlete then you are immediately disadvantaged because athletes are not treated as employees. Quite often you are lodging a complaint against an employee of that organisation and they might have the legal backing of the employer and the athlete is relying on their own resource.
‘You have the precariousness of the athlete contract which pretty much states you can be dismissed at any point. You are fearful of repercussions. it is very difficult to make a complaint.’
a common thread of the gymnastics scandal, summed up by Tinkler recently, is that alleged victims felt their complaints ‘aren’t dealt with fairly and independently’. Skinner, 28, has been exasperated by the continued scandals.
He said: ‘athletes are the most motivated people in the system and i believe you would win more if athletes were treated with humanity and understanding.’
Skinner is convinced there are considerably more grievances than we see. He said: ‘a lot of the culture surveys and welfare initiatives have been seen as lip-service. With those surveys, a lot of athletes have concerns with the level of confidentiality, so i don’t think they are painting a true picture.’
a perennial question in all this is how it can be changed. ‘MEMBERS of staff would make us feel pathetic and useless. We were traumatised.’ anonymous Paralympic swimmer to the BBc, 2017. a GENERaL reflection over the past four years of allegations could be that although Uk Sport set the climate with their previous ‘no compromise’ approach to medals and funding cuts for those who missed targets, it was the governing bodies and coaches who determined the weather. Dividing blame can be contentious.
as joanna coates, the cEo of Uk athletics, put it to Sportsmail: ‘other governing bodies might well say the pressure put upon them by Uk Sport leads to the problems, but i disagree. When people discuss this historic “no compromise” tag, it comes down to the interpretation of the individual sports. it is absolutely not an excuse to make an athlete run until they break.’
and yet a common retort is that Uk Sport historically turned a blind eye, which they denied, even if some prominent figures around the British olympic scene felt their culpability went further.
Much has changed there of late — chelsea Warr departed as performance director, as did cEo Liz Nicholl. Fronted by a new cEo, Sally Munday, and an olympic champion in Dame katherine Grainger as chair, Uk Sport have a softer tone.
The body said last year that their funding strategy will expand to sports with no immediate expectation of medal success.
But how hard have Uk Sport gone in tackling welfare? Plenty has been said positively around their culture health checks, and they appointed a head of sports integrity in 2017 and doubled funding for the Bac.
But it is interesting that they have not fired their strongest weapon.
Sportsmail asked how many times in the past two olympic cycles had funding for a governing body been adjusted because of welfare issues.
Uk Sport replied: ‘ We have not adjusted funding levels in response to general “athlete welfare issues”.
‘However, we have changed our funding agreements with sports on three occasions to ensure the recommendations of integrity-related reviews are implemented.’
in an interview with Sportsmail, Grainger doubted the wisdom of funding cuts. She said: ‘ That is a very powerful tool but if you withdraw funding, you end up potentially damaging the wrong people.’
Uk Sport did not go into detail in answer to a subsequent question of whether they have recommended the removal of any performance directors or coaches, saying responsibility lies with governing bodies.
another curious area is the reporting procedure of issues. When Sportsmail asked the 44 sports if they notified Uk Sport of all complaints, a little over half said yes. That lack of a mandate to relay complaints suggests a vulnerable system. Grainger said: ‘That is something we can change relatively easily.’
Grainger is an interesting figure in this and is likely to be an influential voice. as a five-time olympic medalwinning rower, she supports the relevant point that ‘things that were seen as quite normal (in sports coaching and society) 15 or 20 years ago are not now’, and maintains that she doesn’t recognise the ‘medals at all costs’ narrative in her three years at Uk Sport. But her general assessment is ‘we can all do more’.
She added: ‘With welfare and integrity you can never sit back and think it’s done. Nobody can be comfortable with these headlines right now.’
Quite. Some strides seem to have been taken and it was notable how many of the surveyed sports listed initiatives and protocols they brought in after 2017.
Equally, there are many athletes who will not speak publicly of their fear that too little is happening.
all of which makes it more baffling that there is not yet an independent sports ombudsman to hold folk to account in matters like these, despite the eminently sensible recommendation from Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson in her duty-of-care review three years ago.
Enough has crept out from behind that false wall over the years to make you wonder why it hasn’t happened already.