Like any good swimmer, Maddie Groves knows how to make a splash. But while the timing of her bombshell withdrawal from the Swimming Australia (SA) Olympic Trials last week ensured maximum impact, one of the many lingering questions is why it was necessary for Groves to repeat herself – and miss out on Tokyo 2021.
The two-time silver medal-winning Olympian has an entertaining and outspoken Twitter presence. In recent months she has used the platform to mock the International Olympic Committee – “Is anyone surprised at how willing [the] IOC is to risk people’s lives to make money?” – and offer commentary on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
But late last year, her feed took a darker turn when Groves tweeted allegations of harassment and abuse within swimming. She complained of body-shaming, inappropriate sexual comments and harassment. “We didn’t really have a #metoo moment in swimming,” one tweet read, “but just realising maybe it was this weirdo staring at my tits when I’m trying to swim.”
In the week and a half since Groves withdrew on the eve of the trials, it has become painfully evident that SA failed to react to those allegations at the time. The peak body says it reached out to the swimmer; when Groves did not engage, SA took no further action.
It was not until her explosive announcement last week, where Groves called out “misogynistic perverts in sport and their boot lickers”, that SA was forced into action. Every day since the trials started last Saturday, there has been more scrutiny, more revelations and more mea culpas.
Seven months on from Groves’s initial tweets, swimming’s #MeToo moment has belatedly arrived. Combined with an independent review into gymnastics from the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), which last month raised concerns about abuse, harassment and mistreatment, these developments leave Australian sport facing an overdue reckoning. The allegations, which are now pouring out from within swimming and beyond, point to a bigger question: what is the true cost of Olympic glory?
Funded by taxpayer dollars to the tune of A$250 million each year, Australian high performance sport is supposed to be a well-oiled gold medal-winning machine. But the past week has revealed an ugly, male-dominated underbelly, where women are mistreated, abused and harassed. That reality is profoundly unfair and unjust, maintaining gender inequality within sport at all levels. “If we want to be the best in the world, it has to start with the systems we use,” ex-SA boss Leigh Russell said during the week.
SA has pledged to convene a panel to investigate the experiences of women and girls within swimming. The degree of independence, and authority, to be afforded to the panel remains uncertain. Initially, SA indicated that board member Tracy Stockwell would “help establish this process”. By Monday, possibly in response to criticism about the independence of a panel led by a board member, SA clarified that Stockwell “is overseeing the formation of this panel on behalf of this Board, but not leading this panel”.
The SA board has begged for patience. “We are optimistic about the future of the sport we love,” it said in one of the half-dozen press releases issued in the past week, by a consultant specialising in “crisis, special situation and reputation management”. But is unclear whether an SA-managed panel review is the right approach, or goes far enough.
In the AHRC’s gymnastics report, Changing the Routine, a recurring theme was the need for oversight and complaints-handling to have sufficient distance from the close-knit world of elite sport. A core recommendation was that “all matters regarding child abuse and neglect, misconduct, bullying, sexual harassment, and assault be investigated externally of the sport”. It was suggested this could be achieved by adopting the recently unveiled National Integrity Framework (NIF) of Sport Integrity Australia, a new government agency. For complaints not within the NIF, the AHRC said, Gymnastics Australia should engage “independent, external investigators”.
SA has not adopted the NIF, nor has it engaged the AHRC – a well-respected independent statutory body – to undertake the review. At a press conference this week, chief executive Alex Baumann said SA wanted to go its own way. “I think [engaging the AHRC and/or joining the NIF] was given consideration by the board, but we felt this approach was more conducive to what we hope to achieve,” he said. These comments fly in the face of the AHRC’s exhaustive gymnastics review, which found that managing things in-house was precisely the problem.
Groves’s concerns have also echoed beyond the pool. In The Age on Saturday, Russell, former Sport Australia chief executive Kate Palmer and former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick called for more holistic external intervention. An independent whole-of-sport review into the experience of women as athletes, administrators and coaches was one suggestion; a statutory office for women in sport, with oversight of sporting organisation on diversity and inclusion measures, was another. With Brisbane all but confirmed to host the 2032 Olympics, the additional funding that will flow from a home Games could be used to fundamentally reshape gender equality in sport.
Late on Thursday night, SA announced a strong 35-member team for the Tokyo Games. Having withdrawn from the trials, Groves was not in the squad. But the splash that she made is likely to ripple for years to come.
