wow... where is that from? link?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Do you still standby your comment she won't regret that decision?

Unless there's something we don't know, it appears what Gross did was about 10 kinds of stupid.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Some of the guys on this thread can beat up on Sara, but given her academic background, her years of living in the Middle East and the scope of her contract with Bahrain13, it seems like a good match. If she can enhance opportunity and access to sport for women in the Middle East, she will have done far more via this channel than any push for equal women pro slots for pro women in Kona. The latter is largely symbolic in terms of enhancing access to sport for girls and women. If she can do things on the ground to enable Middle Eastern women to do sport, that's actually fairly huge.

I'll reserve the judgement until I see the body of work that she's able to create from this platform, which I suspect will be substantial. Easy for a bunch of western middle age guys on an internet forum to throw her under the bus for signing up "with the bad guys". Let's be patient and see what she is able to achieve. I believe these are her motivations via this opportunity based on the brief dialogue I read.

Slowman, this would also be a worthy topic for a front page article if you have the time to pull that together!

She tweeted it.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

If she were to really to be going for the change-from-the-inside her first comment on the controversy would not be "allegations are allegations" and that the "justice system" has not found him guilty. That is just towing the party line.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Look, I actually don't care that a tyrant in one country did vs a tyrant in another country (we have had our share in the west so it is an endless rat hole)....that's not up for me to solve. Seriously what do you expect Sara to answer when one of the first questions paints her into a corner vs focusing on the good and change she can enable through this role.

She's made the leap to join this team, so it really is pointless asking her to throw the team and head of it under the bus. Ask her what she is going to do in the role, that is feasible. Incarcerating the Prince physically or intellectually is not on the options list so of course she is going to give the answer she gave.

Come on guys...we can do better.

Dev

but see! In your last post you said to think about how much good she could do from a position on the Bahrain 13 Team. But really, if her purpose in joining the team was to continue the fight for women's rights on an even more important stage than the pier at Kona, she would have put a lot of thought in to that question. She would have a strategy. If she thought a process needed to be followed before she could issue a full acknowledgement of the problems in Bahrain and the leader of the team, she could at least say she was not yet prepared to talk about the subject. Or she could psuedo change the subject and say that one of the things she is really looking forward to doing in her new position is helping women... but to say what she said would be the last way one would answer.

Eventually, if an athlete is going to try to join the Bahrain 13 team in order to improve women's rights there, or human rights in general, one must publicly acknowledge that a problem exists. She has no power to work back-channels and help people that way, while appearing to tow the line in public. I just don't see it. Starting out by not only denying a problem exists but spewing the same propoganda as the royalty... I cannot find any other explanation but hypocrisy or very very very serious confirmation bias in her view of the situation.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

I am still going to cut her some slack. I agree her answer was not well strategist, but she's a history major who has been doing pro triathlon. She's not a media/marketing/pr major and she hasn't been working the lobby network in London/Washington/Ottawa, so rather than beat her up for joining the team, how about we focus on what she can achieve from this springboard....and the reality is that pro triathletes get paid nothing...it's easy for us who make good $$$ in professional capacities outside of the athletic domain to judge pro athletes who live in a slightly more sheltered world (that is ridiculously poorly paid) vs the corporate/political meat grinder that many age groupers might live through daily.

Finally, she's 39, not 29....this seems like a good transition to another career related to sport, but not where you have to win races.

The co founder of TriEqual disagrees with you.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I'd be sold by that argument for almost any other triathlete. Ryf, Macca, etc. I get it. But Sara has established a brand for herself based on a premise of not ignoring certain things. As I said, I think her joining "The 13" could be reconciled with that brand if she'd carefully articulated her rationale. But the way she articulated it seems haphazard, just hand-waving away issues you'd think she'd take seriously given her brand. She had to know those questions were going to be asked, and she didn't prepare to answer them in a way that respected the reader's intelligence. That doesn't leave a good impression.

FWIW here is Sara's position - it's on her blog http://saragross.blogspot.com/...-to-middle-east.html

Since the announcement of the Bahrain 13 team last year, I have been disappointed by the tone of the conversation in the triathlon community. What I see as an opportunity for our sport to create a positive cross cultural dialogue has descended into a singular narrative about a particular element of Bahraini politics. And while human rights abuses must be deplored, to focus solely on that is to focus on one tile in a mosaic. I will not abide by a narrative that myopically focuses on who did what during the Arab Spring uprising while ignoring all the other factors at play. Too many in the West hear Islam, Muslim, Middle East and immediately their minds are set. The world is not black and white but an infinite scale of grey.

There has been much talk about the fact that there are only three (now four) women on the team. I won't mince my words here, I think an effort should be made to support more women. Of course I do. I'm sure the powers-that-be already know my opinion on this matter.

When I got the call to be a part of the Bahrain team, you could have knocked me over with a feather but the more I talked to members of the group the more it became clear they were looking for more than just an athlete to wear their kit. They want me to help expand the dialogue in the Middle East about sport, obesity and the diabetes problem that has taken hold in the Gulf - about the local Bahraini triathletes and - about women in sport in the Middle East. These are all things that I want to talk about

Media/marketing/PR is precisely her role with TriEqual. She's been probably their primary spokesman to the media, including to this site both in the forums and the main page.

I understand her position. " I don't want to talk about the horrible person that's paying my salary".

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Advocacy and being on the attack is entirely different from answering media and being on defence and marketing a promoting a story from a position of weakness (that being the alliance with the Prince's team which in western eyes will inherently be seen as a "sellout"....but she's going to be focused on women in the Middle East through this role, something most people here won't care about. They will care more about women pros in Kona.

I agree her first set of answers were not ideal, I will still give her a bye and stay focused on what work she is able to generate out of all this for access to women in sport in that part of the world (a part of the world where she has lived and even done sport)

Dev,

Name one person who is asking her to throw the team under the bus now that she has joined. That's not what people are asking and if you think that you are really out of touch. People are questioning why she joined the team in the first place.

I get it, you like Sara and won't say anything bad. At least be honest and say that rather than the drivel you spouted.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Actually it's not that I like Sara, Daniela, Frodo, or Macca or don't like them (generally a fan of all). All of these athletes made their decision to join that team. Rather than waste time asking them about the human rights record of the Bahrainis (and by the way, last time I checked Messick and Felix have been aligned with them at some phase of "race deployment" in the last 2 years), I just prefer to ask all of them (the athletes, WTC, Challenge etc etc) how we will use the alignment with the Bahrainis to better sporting opportunities for the people of the Middle East and perhaps understand one another better. When we get to the start line with our wetsuits, compression gear, aero geek-tech, it does not matter if the guy on the start line next to me is from Abu Dhabi, Murmansk, Tel Aviv, Tehran, Shanghai, Austin, London or Hamburg...we're all the same at that point, which is part of the beauty of sport. It sheds some of the animosity that our cultures instill into us against one another.

I had the privilege of racing via Armed Forces competition in several international meets at a young age and it opened my eyes towards how we can impact others and their way of thinking through sport. One person alone can't change the tyrant leading the US Republican race, or the other villains (from western eyes, maybe not how they are viewed in the eyes of their own nationals) running Bahrain or Russia or China or Iran (our newest friend...). But we can change how the world works from the ground up through sporting ties. I know a lot of you guys won't really get it so I am wasting time trying to sway the minds of bunch of guys on the internet programmed for anti Middle East bias (don't get me wrong, I have my own anti muslim bias which comes from a family uprooted of every worldly possession and forced to flee their homeland because we were not Muslim which was just in my dad's generation....but I prefer to extract myself from that 70 year old time warp and try to be enlightened which can be hard to do when your parents constantly slip the built in negative bias without knowing it at a conversational level)

Dev

Exactly.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

You are still missing the point. Nobody is saying that she (or any of the Bahrain 13) should campaign against HRH. They are saying maybe, just maybe don't get into bed with him. If you accept his money you are essentially turning a blind eye to what was done.

Or as Sara puts it: "Hey the unfair Bahraini judicial system says that he didn't torture those people so who am I to judge?"

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I do not think it is fair to cast people who are criticizing Sara Gross for this as internet Muslim-haters. I think a lot of very rational, specific points are being made that has nothing to do with blanket condemnation of Muslims.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

No I get the point. What I am saying is that once ANY of these pros or WTC or Challenge align with the Bahraini's you're wasting time asking them why they are in bed with them (they are, the deal is done). Maybe focus on how they will use the alignment with the Bahrainis to make the tri and sporting world better.

Why do we live in a country like Canada that interned Canadian Japanese during a war with Japan? That's pretty atrocious behavior by any govt to their own people, yet we live here, so implicitly condone the transgressions already done. I don't know why they were done and I can't change them. All I can do is interact in a civil way with both Japanese Canadians or those from Japan, rather than waste time trying to fix the past. We treat many native Canadians like shit from a govt policy perspective so should I just move from Canada because we're such dickheads to our native populations today? Or if I care enough, I can do something about it. Well it turns out I live here and I do nothing about it, so that's pretty bad. Guess who did all the risky life threatening dirty work on the way to laying the last spike on our transcontinental railroad...basically indentured labour from China, not Canadians of Euro/British descent.....and the list goes on

What I am getting at is that there is injustice done everywhere, and its too easy to act like we're more special than anyone, when in reality there is as much blood on our hands. We need to be careful of judging other countries from our high horse. Too easy to forget who and what we swept under or own rug on our way to G8 stardom.....and I say that as a 13 year vet of the Royal Canadian Air Force and have done my service for our country with all its pluses and minuses. No country is perfect....why not move on to making our sport better?

Do you guys seriously think that anyone joining the Bahrain 13 makes our sport worse? (Sara or anyone else)

Yes Dev,

Living in a country where some bad stuff happened before I was even born is totally the same as working for a guy that personally tortured people.

You got me.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

C'mon Dev - it sounds like, again, you're saying that the West did terrible things, and in some cases continues to do terrible things, but those living in the West should stop calling attention to other countries human rights issues because their countries are no better than theirs/ were no better.

I'm sure you understand, but to reiterate: our background, country of origin or family of origin does not stop people from calling out these issues of concern, either within our own cultures or country, or in others.

I get your point about sport being a great leveller and mixing with people of different cultures is a good thing, but the question of whether the competitor should show support for countries with poor human rights records with their cash and participation remains.

Oh, and Sara? "Another protestor has crossed the line, to find the moneys on the other side"

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Swim. Overbike. Walk.

There are many transgressions on our hands in your lifetime too. We're still throwing native Canadians under the bus. Bad stuff is going on everywhere. It's just too easy to judge others. I get it, you don't like the Prince and you don't like Sara signing up for his team. Shouting about it on an internet board will not reverse whatever human rights violations that this guy did. I was in the Armed Forces when Canadians tortured Somalis too but was not deployed there. The Commanding officer of that unit was also the Chairman of the Armed Forces tri team. It all happened under Col Serge Labbe's watch (all documented and public domain). I still raced on the team that he chaired even though he was CO of a deployed group messing up overseas. What did you/we do to better the lives of the Somalis (during your lifetime) while our servicemen beat them up? We Canadians have human rights transgressions on our hands in your lifetime.

It is not that hard, you don't make that much money and when someone flashes cash in front of your eyes and you can support your family easier what do you do? The only guy I have heard that said he doesn't care to do the races over there despite the money is Potts.

Yes Bahrain is better about rights than other middle eastern countries but it is still not even close to being "fair". Several non-profit groups said they have evidence that the prince directly was involved in torturing but since his family controls the courts he will never be charged. Trying to change the subject to east vs west is moot, talk about people involved in triathlons and what they have done. Follow the money and you will find the answer...

Response from Sara:

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Sara Gross

20 Jan 2016

Hi Ed,
Your comment highlights one of the reasons I want to engage with this team. The allegations against HH were brought against him in the UK. If we are to understand this situation, we should always look to be accurate, aim to see the bigger picture and understand everything that is at stake.
Thanks.
Sara
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In general, if one wanted to "look to be accurate" when investigating allegations of torture, it doesn't seem that getting on the payroll of the alleged torturer would necessarily unearth fair and unbiased information. It would also seem to me that the main thing "at stake" is the power held by the royal family.

Anyway, hopefully Sara will report back on her findings.