Title : Fresh bullying claims against AOC over bobsleigh team's omission
link : Fresh bullying claims against AOC over bobsleigh team's omission
Fresh bullying claims against AOC over bobsleigh team's omission
Less than a year after Australia's peak Olympic body commissioned a review into its culture — amid allegations of a toxic bullying environment — fresh claims have been made.
Key points:
- Sliding Sports Australia claims it was bullied over omission of women's bobsleigh team
- AOC denies allegations
- AOC reviewed less than a year ago after allegations of toxic bullying environment
This time it's not staff at the Australian Olympic Committee but one of its member sports federations — Sliding Sports Australia (SSA).
SSA officials say they were "bullied", "threatened" and "railroaded" over their non-selection of the women's bobsleigh team for the upcoming Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
The Australian Olympic Committee completely refutes the allegations.
Speaking on The Ticket today, acting CEO of Sliding Sports Australia Adrian di Piazza said the integrity of the sport was being challenged by the AOC's heavy-handed approach.
"We are being bullied and threatened to breach our own nomination criteria," he said.
The Australian women's bobsleigh team did not achieve the Olympic qualification standards set by the SSA and approved by the AOC.
However, it's alleged the AOC exerted unfair pressure to try and have the women's team selected anyway.
"Now all of a sudden here's the Australian Olympic Committee saying, 'No, no throw that out, just get rid of that, breach it so we can let these other people in'," Mr di Piazza said.
"That destroys the integrity of the selection panel, it's a slap in the face of the athletes who train and work hard and achieve those standards to better themselves.
"What is that? It's bullying."
SSA alleges it was threatened with the possibility of a Court of Arbitration appeal, which would be costly for the small sport run by volunteers.
The chairman of SSA's selection panel, Ted Polglaze, said he was left "dumbfounded" by some of the correspondence with the AOC.
"There's a line from some correspondence we received from the AOC's CEO Matt Carroll, where he says, 'While I respect and endorse Sliding Sports' strategy to bring greater integrity to the sport of bobsleigh this can only be done in increments over time'," Mr Polglaze said.
"I've got to say I just find that statement astounding.
"Everything that my father taught me, and that I try and teach my kids, and that I've tried to bring to every part of my life, is that you always do things with integrity — you don't do a little bit now and then try and do a little bit later.
"We are being asked to have a substandard level of integrity."
AOC denies allegations
The AOC boss said the allegations were not true.
"No. We respected them from the beginning — they write the criteria, they run their sport, I said that to them," Mr Carroll said.
"The reason why we queried it [the women's non-selection] is because in late 2017 Adrian had conveyed to us that they were looking for some leniency for the women's bobsleigh team.
"What I indicated to them was that they could make a decision around their discretion if they so chose but at all times I said, 'It's your decision, it is your sport, you run it'."
However, Mr Carroll said they did discuss what might happen if the women's team appealed against their non-selection and it went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
"I said, 'Remember if you go to the court they're going to ask you a lot of questions, not just about your selection criteria but how did you support the girls?'" he said.
Mr Carroll said it was possible SSA may lose such an appeal, "but constantly during all of the conversations — and I'm quite happy to release my emails to Sliding Sports Australia if they agree — I said to them, 'It's your decision, we respect your decision, we respect it's your criteria, we respect it's your sport'.
"I really don't know where Sliding Sports are saying they got bullied or anything of that nature. It's not true.
"Basically all I said to them was: 'Have you thought this through thoroughly before you make the final decision?'
"At the end of the day, they have made their final decision, we've respected that decision … and there will be no Australian women's bobsleigh team going."
Mr Carroll said he suggested the new, tougher standards set by SSA for Olympic selection had to be introduced slowly.
"So that's my point about being 'incremental'," he said.
"You can't suddenly go: 'Today we're making it harder than it was yesterday'."
Mr Carroll said the AOC was committed to the recommendations from the 2017 Ethics Centre review of its organisational culture and significant change was already evident.
"Absolutely. And the sports are respecting what we're doing because our engagement is so much better than it was previously," he said.
"A really simple way of putting it is, we're listening, we're not telling."
At least one of the AOC's member sports sees it differently.
"There were lots of promises, and, 'Let's get the Ethics Centre involved', and, 'Let's start listening to the sports', etcetera but nothing has changed," Mr di Piazza said.
SSA says it was also told by the AOC the non-selection of the women's bobsleigh team would be given to, "their friends in the media" and that it, "would not slant the story in a nice way".
'We understand why we weren't selected'
Until this past week, little had been written about the women's bobsleigh team.
Team pilot Breanna Walker spoke to The Ticket from the World Junior Championships in St Moritz where the team finished their run in a promising 11th position.
"We understand why we weren't selected, I mean obviously it's disappointing … but to be honest, it's been so humbling to see so much support from all around the world," she said.
"It's really great, especially for a rookie team that's just starting out in the sport. It gives us a real boost leading forward into future years."
Walker admitted the 2022 Olympic Games had always been the goal, a plan agreed to with SSA back in 2016.
She also said the team decided against appealing against their non-selection for the 2018 games.
"We really didn't think that we would be successful in the court so to be honest we wanted to focus on this weekend's World Junior Champs," she said.
"We treated this as our Olympics and we're really happy with how we performed today."
She said the team had learnt a lot from recent events that would help shape future plans.
"The Australian Olympic Committee did express to us that, 'You get a nomination, you're going to the games', and so we thought out of everybody the Australian Olympic Committee would have most push in selecting us," she said.
"We now found out they don't so I think moving forward, especially building our relationship with Sliding Sports Australia, there'll be more clarity on what really needs to be achieved."
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