Chronicle | The crisis hitting Boxing Canada must not stop there



Last Sunday, Boxing Canada’s high performance director, Daniel Trépanier, tendered his resignation.

Four days earlier, 121 athletes (current and former), coaches, officials and members of provincial federations had published an open letter in which they demanded the resignation of Daniel Trépanier. They also called for an investigation into Boxing Canada’s inability to govern itself acceptably.

The plaintiffs, whose testimonies had been carefully collected, evoked a toxic culture as well as a climate of fear and silence. Harassment and favoritism cases were also raised.

Last Friday, two days after the publication of the open letter, Canadian boxing was splashed on the international scene when the International Amateur Boxing Federation stripped Daniel Trépanier of his accreditation for the Women’s World Championships, which began 48 hours later. late.

And, given the serious allegations made by the signatories of the letter, the International Federation had indicated that it was going to be particularly interested in the way in which the follow-up of this file was going to be done by the Canadian sports authorities.

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Daniel Trépanier having resigned, Boxing Canada is now looking to the future. The Canadian federation has indicated that a search committee will be formed in the coming weeks, in collaboration with the provincial federations, to find another high performance director.

However, it would be far too easy if we wiped the slate so easily and if Boxing Canada could start operating again as if nothing had happened.

You can’t turn the page so easily on an episode that lasted 12 years. Moreover, the many signatories of the letter, let us remember, not only demanded the departure of Trépanier, they also wanted an investigation to reveal why their federation had become so dysfunctional.

And that is the killer question.

Boxing Canada’s board says it commissioned an external report last March. The federation, she said, wanted to do a comprehensive review of the culture of its high performance program and ensure that Canadian boxers could be developed in an optimal environment.

Yet this work was done six years ago. In 2016, a report was produced by Gary Keegan, an Irish boxing expert who was also director of the Irish Institute of Sport.

Keegan, whose credibility rating is very high in the industry, had personally observed the functioning of the Canadian boxing program. He had invited the members of the federation to answer a survey and, secondly, he had conducted interviews with people working at all levels within Boxing Canada.

By the end of the fiscal year, the report filed by Keegan was abysmal. At the beginning of the document, the three findings summarizing its approach were:

  • There is no clear mandate, established policies or infrastructure that allows Boxing Canada to operate in a high performance environment;
  • The training, development system and support structures surrounding senior athletes lag far behind what the environment of a world-class athlete should be;
  • The application of training, management, science, medicine, lifestyle and environmental expertise that motivates individuals and promotes performance is in dire need of improvement.

Put yourself in the shoes of a less serious administrator. You read this and the report hasn’t even started. It seems to me that you instantly tell yourself that the house is on fire and that there is a serious shake-up to be done.

The report was also full of pretty clear sentences like former program athletes have low levels of trust in Boxing Canada staff and board . The author also underlined that the coaches did not make cases of serious shortcomings in the preparation of the athletes, such as the lack of training partners or international opponents. Gary Keegan also noted the absence of performance measures, the total deficiency of the talent identification process, the lack of resources, etc.

You read this and you tell yourself that the members of Boxing Canada were extremely patient before preparing their open letter. Much too patient, because the pot should have jumped several years ago. And above all, what this report tells us is that if competent administrators had been in place, the athletes would have been protected and a housecleaning would have been done quickly at Boxing Canada starting in 2016.

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It is therefore for this reason that the Minister of Sports, Pascale St-Onge, must ensure that an independent investigation is carried out. Not to identify the culprits, but above all to ensure that high-level Canadian athletes will never again be exposed to similar situations in their pursuit of excellence.

Wearing the Canadian colors in international competition should be one of the greatest accomplishments of an athlete’s life. It certainly shouldn’t be the kind of ordeal that more and more athletes from a growing number of sports disciplines are denouncing and describing.

Just last March, 80 athletes from the Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation demanded the resignation of two senior leaders of the national federation. They alleged security issues, a flawed culture, a lack of transparency and arbitrary decisions.

Also last March, 71 gymnasts (including 10 Olympians) published an open letter denouncing a toxic culture and abusive practices within their sports community.

In April 2021, just before the Tokyo Games, 37 female rugby players denounced the psychological violence, harassment and intimidation of which they claimed to be victims.

And in September 2020, 18 athletes from the national artistic swimming team filed a complaint. They said they trained in a hostile climate marked by harassment and abuse. However, their complaints were not accepted and, four months later, five former swimmers brought a class action against their federation for psychological abuse, as well as sexual and racial harassment.

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If Sports Canada and Minister St-Onge do not see an alarming number of cases requiring an exceptionally strong response, what will it take?

It is absolutely necessary that serious investigations be made to find the common root, if there was one, which made it possible for such rotten climates to have been able to develop and become embedded within sports programs which are supposed to be Canadian flagships.

And while waiting for the abscess to be broken, let’s hope that if other federations are plagued by the same evil, their athletes will in turn have the courage to stand up and denounce the situation.

Noting all the support they enjoy today, Canadian boxers must bitterly regret having waited so long to mobilize.



Reference-ici.radio-canada.ca

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