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Four years ago the headlines painted a picture of a dysfunctional Australian Olympic swim team, beset by drug and bullying scandals, and under-performing in the pool.
Now Swimming Australia’s (SA) president John Bertrand has criticised the sport’s previous administrators’ response to the London scandals, saying too much pressure was put on the swimmers.
Star sprinter James Magnussen labelled the scandals a “storm in a teacup”, especially compared to the off-the-pitch stories coming out of the NRL and AFL.
Swimming has since undergone a complete overhaul behind the scenes: 80 per cent of the administration is new since London, in what the SA president calls a “revolution”.
Bertrand now says the organisation’s response to the troubles in 2012 was a mistake.
“Would we do that again? You’d have to say no. You’d have much more preparation in terms of how you’d say something like that to the world,” he said.
“[There was] a lot of publicity about it and the press fed on it. Looking back on it, you shake your head at it and say it could have been handled better in terms of the response of Swimming Australia to the media.”
Did he think there was too much pressure put on those swimmers?
“There was enormous pressure. Absolutely enormous. And it was unfair in many ways,” he said.
He did not elaborate on what he thought were the mistakes.
With six months to go until Rio, swimmers and administrators say the team’s so-called ‘toxic culture’ is well and truly in the past.
[There was] a lot of publicity about it and the press fed on it. Looking back on it, you shake your head at it and say it could have been handled better in terms of the response of Swimming Australia to the media.
Star swimmer Cate Campbell, a member of the team’s leadership group, said the label that stuck post-London was not fair.
“This team is the best team I’ve been part of, and I’ve been part of many Australian swim teams,” she said.
“No one’s perfect and we’ve definitely cleaned up our act since then but ‘toxic’ was a little bit harsh.
“Things were blown out of proportion, I personally had a really great time in London.
“Having said that, perhaps it wasn’t bad there was a review and there have been real changes made.”
Magnussen: 2012 scandals were ‘a storm in a teacup’
Analysis from Mary Gearin
“Storm in a teacup”: it’s language well-short of manicured media training. They are, instead, the words of a frustrated sportsperson, who feels unfairly tainted by old news.
His seniors and coaches are urging him to move on, to simply concentrate on his fitness and Olympic build-up. And it’s from that place that James Magnussen spoke when asked how felt about it all, looking back at a time of scandal. It all seems so long ago to him – and since then we’ve had AFL and NRL scandals in relatively high rotation.
Fairly or unfairly, swimming comes under its most intense spotlight every four years: with each Olympics. So swimmers aren’t afforded the quick-cycle image rehabilitation available to NRL or AFL players or officials, who can sin, repent, do the time and be back to flog products in the space of a season.
It may be that other swimmers, who spoke to investigators of the “lonely” London campaign, the bullying, the pranks, will take a different attitude towards “moving on” than Magnussen, especially if they considered their own Olympic campaigns compromised by the team culture.
It’s worth noting that Cate Campbell said the same as Magnussen, albeit more diplomatically.
John Bertrand, though, suggests the problems should be lifted from the swimmers’ shoulders and laid at the feet of their managers.
Spot-fires weren’t addressed, personalities not well managed – conclusions drawn by the sport’s own internal reviews. In speaking out, he wants to spare Magnussen, and the whole team, a re-trial of old crimes, just six months out from a new campaign.
Is it spin, or simply survival, to say, ‘we’ve moved on’? When does the arc of public rehabilitation for a sportsman run its course? How much of it is about language?
The bottom line must be, has the culture actually changed? Those within and outside the team say it has.
The mantra of ‘values’, as opposed to rules, is about treating swimmers like grown-ups, which Campbell says she finds ‘liberating’. It’s on this more mature outlook the administrators are depending for team cohesion and success.
And if Rio rains gold medals, you can be sure the storm clouds of London will seem very far away.
It is a long way from the famous media conference after the pre-Games camp, where Magnussen and team-mates were paraded for a public mea culpa for misusing a prescription drug in a bonding exercise in a pre-Games camp.
The team went on to post its worst results in nine Olympiads. After the Games, two internal reports slammed the team, citing incidents of drunkenness, bullying, pranks, and famously branding the culture “toxic”.
Magnussen said the whole thing was “a storm in a teacup, really”.
“If we’d had a couple of extra golds people wouldn’t even be thinking about it,” he said.
“But I think people are looking for excuses for why the team as a whole didn’t perform the way some expected.
“But whilst they say it was a toxic culture, there were great relationships forged in that team and everyone got along really well.
“I think that’s the same this year — everyone gets along really well and hoping for a successful Olympics.”
Asked whether people will think he is not taking the matters like prescription drug use and pranking seriously enough, he said: “A lot of that has been blown out of proportion.”
“The story itself seems to get greater, more distorted every time it’s told … there’s a lot worse things that go on every day,” he said.
“Just read the papers and look what goes on in NRL and AFL. I’m really not too concerned about that, that’s been put to rest.”
Bertrand said Magnussen has his support.
“I think for someone like James [that response is about] getting on with his life,” Bertrand said.
New coach instilling values in team
At training ahead of last weekend’s Perth Aquatic Super Series, it was a relaxed scene. Swimmers joked with each other, as genial Dutchman Jacco Verhaeren wandered the pool deck.
With an enviable track record in his native Netherlands, he has instilled a calm core of confidence in the team, resulting in remarkable performances in the Commonwealth Games, Pan Pacifics and world championships since he took on the role.
He is the man behind a new approach to the swimmers — instead of a finger-waving approach, the swimmers are being taught to take responsibility for themselves.
We can’t keep dragging along with the story as such. I think we turn the page and we’re ready for the Olympics.
No rules — around alcohol, social media, or anything else — just guidelines, and an onus on personal responsibility.
“I must say since I’ve been here and that’s again been since Jan 2014 I haven’t had one bad experience in the team whatsoever,” Verhaeren said.
“We can’t keep dragging along with the story as such. I think we turn the page and we’re ready for the Olympics.”
Review was needed, says Leisel Jones
One former team-mate veteran of four campaigns, gold-medallist Leisel Jones, agreed the review was needed.
“I think having a pretty brutal look at yourself after London 2012 was something that … helped create a shift in the team and make sure they look at [its] culture,” Jones said.
“It really had to happen; it went toxic pretty quickly so they’ve done a really great job … you can’t do any of that without the team wanting to do it.
“The culture has done a complete 180 since London 2012. It was probably the worst it could have been.
“Even [since the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow 2014] they’ve looked like a completely different team.
“They’ve really worked hard, they’re really starting to gel and looking like the team was in 2000.
“They’ve certainly got their heads screwed on properly.”
It really had to happen; it went toxic pretty quickly so they’ve done a really great job … you can’t do any of that without the team wanting to do it.
Now the team’s buzzword is ‘values’ — namely, respect, professionalism and fun.
“It’s more about giving people personal responsibility and I definitely believe that the more responsibility that you give people the more responsibility they take,” Campbell said.
“So as opposed to just giving out rules and saying, obey this or else, you say look, these are our values, we want you to operate within those, and we leave it up to your discretion as to how to do that.
“Obviously there are penalties if you breach that, but it gives people more freedom, allows people to express themselves as more individuals and kind of allows more diversity.
“It’s been quite a liberating experience.”
The message swimming wants to send is clear — London is already water under the bridge. The real test comes in six months.
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