Australian Olympic Committee Asks Brazil Not To Take Volkers To Rio

The Australian Olympic Committee has asked the Brazil not to select former Australian Olympic swimming coach Scott Volkers for their Olympic team, amid child abuse allegations.

The Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates, wrote to Brazilian committee president Carlos Nuzman last week to express the committee’s disappointment that Volkers was never convicted for allegedly abusing swimmers in the 1980s and 1990s.

As reported in July 2014, three of Volkers’ former swimmers, Julie Gilbert, Kylie Rogers and Simone Boyce claimed they were abused as children while training in Volkers’ swim squad in the 1980s and 1990s. A detailed account of the three swimmers’ allegations can be read here.

While the charges were eventually dropped in court, Volkers was later refused a “blue card,” which would have allowed him to continue to work with children in Australia. While he did continue to hold positions at the Queensland Academy of Sport and within Swimming Queensland until 2010, he has since moved to Brazil. He has coached at the prestigious Brazilian club Minas Tenis, coaching swimmers such as Nicolas Oliveira and Cesar Cielo. He currently works with the Brazilian national team.

Coates has urged the Brazilians not to accredit the former Australian coach in the past, even denying him credentials to the 2014 Pan Pacs in the Gold Coast.

“We do not think he should be involved on the pool deck, in the Olympic village, or at all in the Rio Olympic Games,” Coates said. “I put it to the Brazilian president that we cannot ignore our obligations as a National Olympic Committee to bring to the attention of other National Olympic Committees serious information about Australians who may be working in their sporting system.”

Coates passed on copies of royal commission’s report and case study to the Brazilian Olympic Committee.

Volkers stood trial in 2002 on seven charges of indecent treatment of the girls, but the Queensland deputy director of public prosecutions dropped the charges.

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glvov
7 years ago

Soooooo , King will be kept out of the Olympics too?
Heaven help us if we let him go to the Olympics as part of the Chinese team!

Gina
7 years ago

The Royal Commission report would only be the transcripts of submissions to the commission on Institutional Responses to accusations of sexual abuse.

Along with the Royal Commission into Home Insulation & The Royal Commission into Trade Union governance it is still ongoing . Until the end report they are all a series of claims & statements & interrogations by a tribunal that gets more exasperated & inefficient as the years go by.. Even then recommendations by the Royal Commissions are put through further filters in Parliamentary sub committees before legislation (if any) is proposed.

Resolution is a long way off & the Qld judicial decision still stands .

skip
Reply to  Gina
7 years ago

the royal commission is doing reports as it goes along. anyone can read the one completed about volkers and some other coach. far from just transcripts these reports have recommendations as well. such as QAS getting a child protection policy in place asap

7 years ago

My guess is that the Brazilians will ignore the pleas of the Australians.

About Hannah Hecht

Hannah Hecht

Hannah Hecht grew up in Kansas and spent most of her childhood trying to convince coaches to let her swim backstroke in freestyle sets. She took her passion to Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa and swam at NAIA Nationals all four years. After graduating in 2015, she moved to …

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