Paul Kimmage – Seconda parte dell’indagine sul canottaggio irlandese: negazione, caduta e una fine amara
https://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/paul-kimmage-part-two-of-the-investigation-into-irish-rowing-denial-downfall-and-a-bitter-end/a1181136548.html
di rowtheboatforsho
4 commenti
Part 1 wasn’t really as scandalous as the opening paragraph made it out to be. Is part 2 actually worth the 10-15mins reading time?
Haven’t read part two but Paul has a distain for elite level sports. At the top it’s ruthless and ethically questionable sometimes, but that’s hardly ground breaking journalism.
This isn’t the first time this has happened with foreign coaches at the top of the rowing system. In the 2000’s we had east german Harald Jährling doing similar shit causing our best rower at the time, Gearóid Towey, to walk away from the squad during a training camp.
A small selection of quotes from Sanita Puspure:
>”With this in mind, I am writing to you to express my deep concerns about the manner in which the current programme is run. And I am writing to say that many decisions made and actions taken by high performance management have had a detrimental impact on me, my family, and many other athletes both retired and still active …
>”Currently there are 12 people from the Rowing Ireland high performance team seeking help from a clinical psychologist; three of them are working with a psychiatrist and are on medication to improve their condition. Not many athletes are brave enough to speak up as everyone is afraid for their seats. How many more mental illnesses do we need in the high performance system for someone to look at this programme properly? Unfairness, bias, and lack of transparency is very damaging when you are putting your life on hold and giving rowing 100 per cent of your time and effort.
Both parts of the investigation are worth a read. The treatment of some of the athletes was/is disgusting.
Any attempts to rationalise away what happened as some sort of _well it’s high performance sport_ is utter silliness & only served to highlight the rationalisers ignorance of what is actually appropriate in a high performance sport environment. 12 HPT athletes requiring treatment from a clinical psychologist as a result of the programme is _not normal_ nor appropriate.
Sure, there will be whinging about disliking Kimmage etc., but if that causes people to completely discount or ignore the entirety of this reporting then that’s telling of a larger problem within the reader rather than what’s reported in this two-parter.