Swimming South Africa Releases Bulky Inquiry Report

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, December 19. SWIMMING South Africa has released its finding regarding a lengthy investigation into allegations brought forward in an article, Fear Factor Sinks Swimmers, published by the Sunday Times on Aug. 31.

The 100-page document explains Swimming South Africa's investigation into "allegations ranging from racism against swimmers, alleged assault by the Swimming South Africa head coach, threats of exclusion, supposed victimization of swimmers, an instilled culture of fear in the camp by management, foul-mouthed officials who had no respect for swim team members to a number of other incidents relating to the Beijing Olympic Games."

The first quarter of the report attempts to debunk nearly every allegation within the article stating that "[Swimming South Africa] concludes that the allegations made in the newspaper article relating to the 2008 Beijing Olympics are in material respects not justified either in the article itself, or in subsequent interviews conducted with the key role-players."

The report concludes that while Swimming South Africa disagrees with nearly every individual point made within the article, and still contends that the article was not well-founded with fact-based research and is a sensational story, the investigation led to several findings.

The Commission found, among 13 points of findings, that "swimmers lacked proper scientific/technical, and financial support; swimmers lacked adequate administrative support; manifest tension between the head coach, team manager, team captain and the USA-based swimmers, although well known, was not managed effectively or at all; SASCOC [South Africa's Sports Confederation] and Swimming South Africa did not clarify their respective roles, both in preparation for, and at, the Beijing Olympics. This resulted in confusion, and a loss of respect by swimmer for officials, and vice versa; SASCOC (and Swimming South Africa) lack the capacity and funding to manage and support any sizeable group of swimmers that go to the Olympics."

The findings also went on to state that the Performance Manager was unable to work with high performance swimmers, but that many of these issues were not found to have adversely impacted South Africa's performance at the Beijing Olympics.

The Commission also made a point of stating that since readmission to the Olympics, South Africa still has not had a black swimmer represent the country at the Games.

Full Report

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