I was coached by one of those coaches when I was in HS, in 1988-9. I heard the rumors for years about what went on, and later, when a victim impact statement, articles from the Washington Post, and transcripts of a radio interview were released, I was stunned to hear that most of the details we heard from almost 30 years ago were true. What a giant mess.

I've read many articles about coaches acting horribly. I think more reports will come out, but obviously, I hope not. USA Swimming definitely protected their own, at the cost of huge trauma for children.

Organizations that covered up sexual abuse (Catholic Church, USA Gymnastics, USA Swimming, etc) to protect their image or people ended up creating far bigger problems by shuffling priests around, or burying Larry Nassar reports, or ignoring creeps like Rick Curl and others. What a disaster for the victims.

This is so far beyond horrible! Not only did they look the other way, they actually spent $$$ to lobby against reform efforts. There really needs to be a housecleaning there.

Fortunately, no one with that type of history could ever be a well respected coach in triathlon.

Nothing surprises me anymore.

The question is, what sport is next in this insane cycle of cowardice and abuse?

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agreed, and though the pink font is a bit ha-ha, i think this is really important. triathlon should aspire to be beyond reproach, and having this kind of massive skeleton in the closet is not good for the sport, at all.

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The saddest part, is that despite the huge public fiasco and terrible PR that results of this (as well as the jail time), the PR hit taken by USA Gymnastics and USA Swimming is small and short-term.

The impact on the organizations for turning the eye will likely be puny and nearly inconsequential in comparison to the huge permanent long-term harm they inflicted on the victims by looking the other way. Sure, Larry Nassar gets thrown in jail forever, but USA Swimming and Gymnastics otherwise walks away nearly scot-free, and retaining all the prior fame, medals, and nearly all the glory for prioritizing winning over their kids.

A LOT more people really should be thrown in jail as accomplices of such looking the other way.

I just skimmed it, but it doesn't strike me as anything that hasn't been known for quite some time. And Chuck W was horribly negligent on this issue during his tenure.

I will say that USA swimming should be given some credit for starting to clean up its act a few years ago, before this current wave of outing sexual harassers and predators got kick started with the Weinstein scandal. Is what they are doing enough? Probably not, but they do seem to be taking it seriously, and at least some of the swimming press takes it seriously enough to regularly release names of coaches banned by USA swimming.

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Yeah I have a feeling fingers will be pointed at the dead guy(Chuck W) and not much will change. Most of the story was rehashed old headlines that even when all pulled together is not quite shocking enough to cause real change. I did find it odd that the Safe Sport lady in charge seems unqualified with no background whatsoever but that was the only current thing I learned. The Kukors story was awful and I feel bad for her but her parents were right there watching it all unfold. Honestly I would just require under 18 swimmers be accompanied by a parent when travelling. It just seems like an unnecessary risk to take 30 underage kids on a trip with a handful of coaches in charge. My daughter's team does travel meets where the coaches chaperone and the parents are not allowed on the plane or the bus and also told not to stay at the team hotel. My daughter does not go.

Most of this is all rehashed. And most of it was well known throughout swimming. That anyone at US Swimming didn't know is BS and a total cover-up.
Ivey was my coach as a little kid. Well known to bed and marry young girls. ESPN or CNN did a big expose on him in about 95 when he was at Florida.
I also knew Jewell. I coached his wife and sometimes him before the accusations were made against him. I wonder if she divorced him.

Hopefully, more light on this will help swimming clean up even more.

Strict rules are needed. Ban on relationships with coaches at all levels. Background checks. No adults ever alone with kids. Enough parents on roadtrips ( background check them as well). And more.

An anecdote about Rick Curl is that on big travel trips (Olympic Trials, World Trials, Senior Nationals), he booked the team in rooms in another wing or on another's floor of the hotel. He booked himself and the victim in adjoining rooms, because as the star, "she needed to have a quiet room away from team distractions." The two rooms had that door between, for, uh, easier access to check to see if she was asleep, or whatever. There weren't any parents as chaperones.

Coaches affiliated with that team at the time (mid 1980s) are rumored to have known something was up, and even having walked in on abuse. They all practiced plausible deniability, and still coach to this day.

Currently in place in USA Swimming per code of conduct 304.3.7 C quoted below.

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One of my kids did the swimming thing for a few years and I volunteered to be an official. My sense is that they get it and certainly have talked the talk at our local official meetings and meets. There are protocols and procedures in place to minimize these types of things happening. Not to mention the parents usually run the clubs. . . and it's their kids. I felt like this type of behavior would have been addressed swiftly and appropriately. Now. . . are there issues at the national training level. . . can't speak to that.

If they had done 5 seconds of research they would know that Susan Woessner has a masters degree in social work - focused on child welfare. I'd say her knowledge of the sport combined with that makes a perfect background to lead the way. Was USA Swimming perfect in the past? Hell no! were they negligent? Maybe? We didn't know how to handle this at any real level 10-15 years ago, but Swimming is doing their best to clean up and move forward. The climate is rightly different now.

One thing that's never talked about in all of this is the right to due process - which is mandated by federal law (Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act). Navigating that and learning how to "prosecute" the bad apples has been difficult for not just swimming but all amateur sports under the USOC. The best thing they could do now, they have done, in creating an independent safe sport body similar to USADA to handle these issues, but getting up and running is time and money intensive.

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

She was already working for USA swimming when she got her degree. She has zero real world experience dealing with abuse victims prior to being moved over to be head of safe sport. Thats the point of that article is that they promoted from within and kept the status quo. I'd like to see the qualifications of the other candidates and why she was chosen as the best one. They should have brought someone in who is more independent.

Just saw a new article about some resignations. And in reading it, I realized that I swam in college with the current CEO/President. He's had quite a career. Now, he's in a bit of hot water.

https://www.ocregister.com/...ing-on-sexual-abuse/

My daughter's team does travel meets where the coaches chaperone and the parents are not allowed on the plane or the bus and also told not to stay at the team hotel. My daughter does not go.


Smart move, although I'm blown away a policy like that even exists.