IIt’s hard to remember Bradley Wiggins sitting on his throne at Hampton Court, driving to Paris in the yellow jersey, or ringing the bell to start the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics without now seeing through the mystery , which he carried within him on all these occasions . It took Wiggins nearly three decades to share his grooming experience at the age of 13. It took Pam Shriver four decades to tell her story of an emotionally abusive relationship with a trainer.
What about the other stories that haven’t been heard yet? While there is shock and compassion, we need to go further to find out what needs to change and why the change still hasn’t happened.
Following the revelations by Wiggins and Shriver, there has never been a more important time for all of us who work in sport, whether as athletes, coaches, parents, leaders, volunteers or journalists, to recognize our responsibility for change. To challenge our assumptions about what healthy recreational and competitive sport looks and feels like. And to take positive action to create a different sports experience for present and future generations.
There seem to be three key takeaways from last week’s stories. Firstly, safe sport must come first, but for many this is still not the case; second, that certain aspects of high-performance environments that are often admired—the behaviors of obsessive dedication, placing winning above all else, and the balance of power in the relationship between coach and athlete—contribute to a darker side of sport that carries high long-term costs brings ; and third, that our focus on heroic narratives throughout sport is at best misleading and at times deeply damaging, distracting us from the true stories of the people behind the hero masks.
Last week it was five years since Tanni Grey-Thompson’s Sport Due Diligence report with several recommendations yet to be acted upon. Why the delay? A new report from the athlete-led Kyniska advocacy group, Stamping Out Sexual Violence in Sport, calls for urgent action. What excuses can there be for not protecting young people in sport? Leading sports have failed to prioritize safe sport over medals and trophies.
Many more are complicit – the media only chases sport by its results; Sponsors are primarily interested in funding those who will win in the short term; At the government level, priority is given to the short-term uplift of national pride through hosting sporting events or winning medals over longer-term opportunities for human and social development through sport.
In the Olympic world, funding flows to the sports that bring home pockets full of medals and culture exams added in recent years have quickly become ticking drills. In grassroots sports, parents have often grown up in a culture where a medal brought status, recognition and an opportunity to easily commit to wanting this for their children without realizing the cost or that there is so much more to be gained through sport. that would outlast trophies; and coaches who know their jobs depend on short-term results are discouraged from investing in the long-term holistic development of their athletes.
Wiggins’ story of nurturing at age 13 paints a disturbing picture of youth abuse in sport. He describes his later behavior as a “loner”, “closed off”, “strange teenager” and links this directly to the subsequent “bicycle ride”. Realizing that his much-admired competitive spirit stems from such a vile experience challenges us to stop and think twice about the kind of competitive behaviors we might be urging youngsters to emulate.
In the world of competitive Olympic and Paralympic athletes, there is a belief that teams that win medals should not be criticized or asked to change. Then, when problems arose, there was a token reaction, a new policy was drafted, or a training course was conducted—but the deep culture of behaviors and beliefs remain the same.
Simone Biles has withdrawn from the Tokyo Olympics to prioritize health. Photo: Mike Egerton/PA
This British Gymnastics integrity department received five stars for their work, while stories of alleged abuse at several clubs show us what the gap is between superficial change and real change. This week’s stories follow Simone Biles’ shock decision to withdraw from attending the Tokyo Olympics to prioritize her mental and physical health.
Coaches, leaders and athletes all have an opportunity to apply the rigor they have long applied to winning medals to create a better and safer environment in which to strive for those medals. We need different goals, broader ambitions and criteria for success that go beyond short-term, temporary and narrow results. Human stories contain the answer: Surely the goal must be the story that athletes tell beyond the outcome. The story they tell when they leave the sport, when they come off the podium or maybe not make it on the podium, and the story trainers share what they are valued for.
Our goal should be to create environments where athletes leave the sport with a positive story regardless of the outcome and ready to give back as role models and perhaps as a volunteer, coach or board member. That certainly means inspiring the next generation. The American professor and writer Prof. Brené Brown said: “If we deny history, it defines us. But if the story is ours, we can write a bold new ending.”
As Wiggins and Shriver begin to write their bold new ending, there is a greater challenge for governing bodies and sports organizations, for coaches and athletes, and for all of us involved in sport, to ensure we start together, another, bolder one to develop future for sport: create better, safer measures of success and redefine what success in sport looks like.
Cath Bishop is an Olympic rower, former diplomat and author of The Long Win. She is an advisor to the True Athlete Project and Chair of Love Rowing, GB Rowing’s charitable foundation
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