Canadian sliders say it’s a slippery path to get the proper support from their national body

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This article was published 09/03/2022 (1302 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bobsledder Neville Wright was brought out of retirement by his young daughter’s wish to see him compete at the Olympics again. He wanted her to be motivated by his effort.

But, far from giving him a fair chance to achieve that Beijing goal, he says the national sport body, Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton, put him in unsafe situations to see if he could hack it or if he would get injured.

“I’ve represented this organization for 10 years, I’ve been to three Olympics and many world championships,” he says. “If I could be treated this way, then what’s to prevent other individuals … from experiencing this?”

Wright is one of the organizing athletes behind a call for the resignation of the federation’s president, Sarah Storey, and high performance director Chris Le Bihan.

A letter signed by more than 60 current and former bobsled and skeleton athletes was sent to the board of directors on Monday citing a “toxic” culture in the organization, “numerous instances where athlete safety has been disregarded,” and problems with transparency and governance, including “gross mismanagement, poor planning, inefficiency and cronyism.”

Skeleton athletes, who were sent to the Olympic test event in Beijing without a coach to help them learn and stay safe on the new track, are wondering where all the money that was supposed to be spent on them went.

In a statement, the national sport organization said: “We appreciate the athletes bringing their concerns forward to Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton’s Board of Directors. We take the concerns of our athletes seriously. As we do at the completion of every Olympic quadrennial, we plan to meet with our athlete community directly as soon as possible to review and address their concerns.”

There is a board meeting scheduled for Wednesday.

This is not the first time the organization has faced turmoil. After the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, it was rocked by the departure of bobsled star Kaillie Humphries, who now competes for the U.S., amid allegations of harassment by head coach Todd Hays. It underwent a culture-shift initiative.

Now, just weeks after the 2022 Beijing Olympics, many more athletes are speaking out, even though some of them say they fear the federation will find ways to punish them for it.

“We’ve certainly tried to have a dialogue (with BCS leadership) but we’ve just never been given the time,” skeleton athlete Mirela Rahneva says. “Now we’re really pushing for accountability and we’ve asked for support from the Canadian Olympic Committee and Own the Podium. We’ve looped everybody in, so hopefully those bigger organizations can hold our national sport organization accountable.”

Storey, who has led the organization since 2014, was not made available to comment on the athletes’ claims and concerns. She defended the organization’s culture and how it spends its skeleton funding in an interview with The Canadian Press during last month’s Beijing Olympics.

“We’ve worked really hard to improve the culture of this organization,” Storey said then. “It’s a little bit difficult when there are these limited resources, and frustration about the limited resources … You want to do so much more than you can do. And the system is not perfect.”

Money is certainly an issue for most of the national sport organizations in Canada and it’s rare for athletes to get to the Olympics without personal sponsors or significant help from the likes of family and GoFundMe pages.

Rahneva says athletes understand that money is tight but are concerned that what is available is being poorly spent. “It just seems to never actually come down to the athletes.”

But she admits they can’t be sure where the money is going because their questions have gone unanswered. That’s why they’re hoping the COC and OTP will take up their cause and do what they haven’t been unable to: get answers.

“They call it a lean organization but really they say that so their decisions aren’t challenged,” she says.

Canada’s World Cup skeleton team had no coach for much of this season. “ ‘You guys are seasoned veterans, you have your connections, make it work,’ ” Rahneva says they were told over the phone. “Everything’s over a call, no email of anything, I think they like to just speak so there’s no paper trail.”

The athlete letter and the personal stories of some individuals paints a picture of an organization that operates erratically and at the last minute, seemingly unconcerned about how that might affect performances.

“What really threw us for a loop is the whole ‘Organize your own Olympic season, get your own coaching, get your own therapy … hold sleds for each other on the start line of race day.’ I think it’s actually a miracle that we qualified three sleds (for Beijing).”

The selection race that was supposed to determine Canada’s Olympic team was announced with little notice and held when athletes returning from the Beijing test event were still jet lagged, says Rahneva, who was fifth at last month’s Olympics, Canada’s top result in skeleton. “It was such a mess.”

Rahneva says she felt more support from other countries during the season than from her Canadian sport body.

“I’m on my way out,” says Rahneva, who intends to compete for just one more year. “But I think it’s important to leave the sport better than I found it.”

Bobsled pilot Cynthia Appiah would like to stick around and compete at least until the 2026 Olympics.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m a little nervous,” she says. “We’re trying to bring change and it’s always scary to see what the response is going to be like.”

But since she has taken on a leadership role, as a pilot and one of the few Black women in winter sport, Appiah says she can’t shy away from this, adding she has a responsibility “to speak for those who are afraid to speak.”

The bulk of the more than 60 athletes who are current team members or have competed since 2014 asked to sign the letter anonymously.

“We’re always afraid of retaliation,” Appiah says, noting athletes already feel like leadership makes arbitrary decisions about who gets placements, equipment and resources.

That’s all a sign of “such a huge problem” in the organization, she says. “How do you succeed in a system like that?”

Athletes are accustomed to sharing their experiences to inspire and motivate others. Doing that for his seven-year-old daughter is what brought Wright back to the sport, and now he says the job is not done.

“I think we also have a responsibility to use our platform to amplify, advocate and create change, not just for ourselves and our teammates but also for the future generation of athletes.”