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Complaints procedure for aggrieved athletes thwarts necessary cultural change in gymnastics in Australia
  1. Victoria Louise Roberts1,
  2. Alison Susan Quigley2
  1. 1 Department of Management and Marketing, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  2. 2 School of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Victoria Louise Roberts, Department of Management and Marketing, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia; victoria.roberts{at}unimelb.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2022-106269

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    In 2021, Australian gymnasts—current and former—bravely disclosed their experience of interpersonal violence and its profound impact to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Independent Review of Gymnastics in Australia.1 Their disclosures led to a more precise understanding of the drivers and systemic risk factors for interpersonal violence against athletes in Australian gymnastics and laid the foundation for the Commission’s recommendations on ways to introduce positive cultural change.1

    Alongside the Commission’s Review, a Supplementary Complaints Management Process (SCMP) was established to allow Australian gymnasts to seek an independent determination of whether there had been interpersonal violence and appropriate sanctions where it had occurred.2 Three organisations were involved in the development and implementation of the SCMP policy: Gymnastics Australia, the national gymnastics organisation; Sport Integrity Australia, a new independent statutory body (also responsible for the investigation of complaints); and the National Sports Tribunal, a new independent adjudication body (also responsible for the appeal process).

    However, when child gymnasts engaged in the investigation process, they reported feeling retraumatised, unheard and not believed. Records indicate that 35 allegations were made through the SCMP. Only seven cases triggered investigation processes. For four of these, the outcomes were ‘neither substantiated nor unsubstantiated’ or ‘unsubstantiated’.3 For example, 15-year-old Australian gymnast, Scarlett Magnanini, participated in the Commission’s Review and made a formal complaint about her experience of interpersonal violence (consent provided for this report). She cited witnesses of the violence and was interviewed for several hours. Scarlett’s complaints were ‘neither substantiated nor unsubstantiated’ or ‘unsubstantiated’. In a televised interview at the time, Scarlett said “I felt like when that answer came out, my experience wasn’t validated, it wasn’t accepted. The trauma that I’d faced, they basically said, ‘No. It didn’t happen.’”4 Scarlett’s sentiments were common among gymnasts whose complaints met the criteria for investigation. …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors VLR developed the idea and wrote the article. ASQ cowrote the article.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • ↵We adopt the WHO and IOC’s definition of violence conceptualised as the intentional, threatened, or actual use of either physical force or power that is likely to result in ‘injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development or deprivation’, Krug et al, p.1084.17