2021 SWIMMING AUSTRALIA OLYMPIC TRIALS
- Saturday, June 12th – Thursday, June 17th
- South Australia Aquatic & Leisure Centre
- Sole Olympic-Qualifying Opportunity
- 2021 Swimming Australia Olympic Nomination Criteria
- Meet Site
- Final Start List
With just days until the start of the Swimming Australia Olympic Trials, we reported how Rio silver medalist Maddie Groves had announced her withdrawal from the event. The 26-year-old had originally entered the Trials in the women’s 100m fly and 50m free, so repeating or improving upon her 200m fly silver from Rio wasn’t on the table to begin with.
“I’ve made the decision to not compete at Olympic Trials in Adelaide. I’m so grateful to feel so supported in this decision. I feel very relieved and I’m looking forward to racing at some other competitions later in the year (yeah sorry/not sorry, you haven’t got rid of me just yet!),” is what Groves originally posted on social media.
With heat sheets now posted, Groves represents the only scratch from day 1’s prelims, with her name still appearing on the heat sheets but she’s made it clear she won’t be there.
Subsequent posts from Groves pointed to a possible controversy within Swimming Australia. “Let this be a lesson to all misogynistic perverts in sport and their boot lickers – You can no longer exploit young women and girls, body shame or medically gaslight them and then expect them to represent you so you can earn your annual bonus. Time’s up”, is what Groves posted on her personal Instagram account yesterday, June 10th.
Today, June 11th, Groves posted an additional opinion as follows, “Thank you so much to everyone for all the support! I’ve really been overwhelmed by messages and I just want to thank people so much for taking the time to show they care. I wish I could say I was surprised by the sheer Appalachian Trail of stories I’ve received from people explaining why they understand my decision.”
Her post continued, “It would be a mistake for anyone to reduce my decision to a singular incident. My decision is partly because there is a pandemic on, but mostly it is the culmination of years of witnessing and benefitting from a culture that relies on people ignoring bad behavior to thrive. I need a break. If starting this conversation will save even just one young girl from something like being told to lose weight or diet not going to the Olympics will have been worth it.”
With no other details being made public, Swimming Australia President Kieran Perkins responded by saying, “I don’t know who she’s talking about or what the complaint is apparently meant to be.
“I actually have no evidence of that and that’s really quite concerning. In terms of the culture of our sport, that is something that really does stab at the heart of everybody involved in swimming.
“We are a sport that has generationally been diverse. Every team has always had an even number of male and female swimmers and we work extremely hard to provide an open and safe environment for everybody.
“It doesn’t mean we always get it right. There have certainly been challenges over the years. I would disagree strongly with that view.” (Yahoo)
Perkins continued,”She has at no point contacted Swimming Australia, we haven’t been able to talk to her directly and go through her concerns with her to find out what’s going on,” he said.
“I could certainly reassure her and everybody that claims like these are of the utmost importance to us and providing a safe environment for all of our participants is absolutely paramount to us.
“Unfortunately though social media posts don’t constitute any actionable claim for us. We actually need to sit down and talk to people about this.
“We would love to do that and we’d like Maddie to come and speak with us if she feels that she can.” (Yahoo)
These type of complaints (and others of emotional, psychological and physical abuse) have been raised with swimming australia by numerous people over many, many years. They are routinely swept under the rug because SA investigate the issues internally. This means they protect their abusive coaches and inept administrative staff. They do not care about their athletes. Groves cannot safely name perpetrators without jeopardizing her career – swimming australia will push her out: cut funding, and bully her. This is not a new experience for athletes who speak up in this sport.
Swimming Australia has thus far refused to adopt a new suite of policies in Australia called the national integrity framework (NIF), which means Sports Integrity Australia (formerly ASADA… Read more »
Intriguingly she spoke of ‘X & their partner ‘.who seem to have been harassing her .
Her fastest times were in 2016
Say we stipulate abusive verbal and “staring” behavior
She’s had years to change coaching, get faster.
Hope she gets help, can move beyond whatever slight or abusive behavior she asserts occured
Swim Australia should be reaching OUT to her vs sending the public a message. Do the right thing. Contact her directly! Stop looking for some excuse. When this happens all the times, the national organization always are saying they are doing it right or looking after the best interests of the athletes. Look at USA gymnastics. They were defending again and again for years a sexual predator of woman. Repeat defending for years a sexual predator!
They did: https://swimswam.com/swimming-australia-responds-to-maddie-groves-misogynistic-pervertsopost/#comment-911274
she seems to have specific case/reason in feeling and saying what she said. She has shared quite a lot in her Instagram post as recent as in May.
She may not be clear with details in the most recent posts about her withdrawal from trial, and definitely worth a conversation with Maddie than simply speculating… But at the same time, does SA really has no idea what Maddie has been going through? She shared in social media so it is not like she is keeping that a secret.
read this one post – https://www.instagram.com/p/B9jBx4yAQi6/
From her most recent post:
What’s the bet she’d still be swimming at trials if she was in form to make the team? In her current form she’d be exiting in the prelims so no risk of taking a spot away from someone else.
That’s the sentiment I had. If her words about the “misogyny” is true, then that could’ve been just part of the reason why she didn’t swim–the primary reason could be that she hasn’t done the work needed to be a contender.
Top 16 gets a second swim right? She’s capable of doing that and would be knocking someone out of a 2nd swim if she didn’t want to be there
What top 16? It’s prelims in the morning and finals at night format like in the olden days
they had b finals at 2019 trials
Go back and do your homework!
The perverts are still there, Australian swimming knows this. Many investigation and nothing changes. I wouldn’t sit down with Australian swimming either. Unfortunately for Australian swimming they have come up against a very smart young lady who knows how it works.
I hope she’s not talking about Kieren Perkins, that would be a real scandal xD