How Olympic hero Paul Burgess blew the whistle on accused sex predator Alex Parnov, and got axed for his trouble
When pole vault coach Paul Burgess discovered Alex Parnov was accused of preying on young female athletes like Nina Kennedy he tried in vain to get bosses to listen – and soon found himself out of a job.
On April 2 this year, as pole vaulting coach Paul Burgess arrived at the West Australian Institute of Sport to run a coaching session, he was stopped by two security guards. Burgess was barred from the premises, they said, but wouldn’t tell him why. They escorted him back to his car.
For the three-time Olympian, who had spent 21 years at the Institute as an athlete and another 10 years as a coach, it was a shocking – but not entirely unexpected – moment. He’d already blown the whistle on sex predator Alex Parnov, the institute’s revered “guru” of pole vaulting, and now was challenging his bosses on how the coach had been allowed to get away with it for more than a decade.
“I knew I’d been making trouble by demanding answers,” Burgess told The Australian. But although he felt “unsafe”, he never thought WAIS would put the Olympic dreams of two superstar athletes at risk.
The coach had just guided up-and-coming star Nina Kennedy to victory at the World Championships and was in the final stages of preparing her bid for gold at the Paris Olympics.
His other star, Kurtis Marschall, who had won bronze at the World Champs, was also a big medal chance. And this was WAIS with a new board and management, brought in on a promise of fixing the mistakes of the past.
Surely they wouldn’t allow Australia’s best pole vault medal hopes to be put at risk just four months out from the most important moment of their careers, Burgess reasoned.
It seems he was wrong.
“It was shocking to me that they were prepared to blow the Olympic pole vaulting program on the eve of Paris,” Burgess says, still dumbfounded.
Incriminating video
Burgess had started his sporting career as a gymnast from 1988 to 1993 then joined the pole vault program. His first coach was Steve Rippon and then, from 1998, with the Russian-born Alex Parnov.
“Parnov was a manipulator who wanted total control over his athletes’ lives,” says Burgess.
“Alex would cultivate a feeling of complete dependence on him.
“I craved his attention and feared the repercussions of doing other than what he instructed me to do,” Burgess admits now.
Very early on, Burgess had suspicions that Parnov was acting inappropriately with his female athletes. But none of the young women wanted to talk about it. Parnov was all-powerful at WAIS. He could make or break an athlete’s career in an instant. For pole vaulters in Perth, there was nowhere else to go.
In 2015, when Burgess was walking into the WAIS office one day, he encountered an athlete walking out distressed.
“She showed me some messages that Alex had sent, which included one saying ‘I love you’, and said that he was always a bit touchy feely and all this sort of thing,” Burgess says.
“That lined up to me with what I’d seen and known from Kym Howe (Burgess’s former training partner with Parnov).”
Then in July 2016 Burgess saw a video that alarmed him.
Posted on Instagram by athlete Angus Armstrong, the video showed a pole vaulter performing a jump – but in the foreground captured Parnov running his hand down the back and across the bottom of the then-18-year-old Nina Kennedy as they watched on.
Burgess decided he had no choice but to act. He took the video to the institute’s then HR manager, Sharon Foster, who raised it with WAIS chief executive Steve Lawrence.
To Burgess’s shock, Foster reported back that Lawrence had “decided not to go through formal channels for the incident but would instead speak to Parnov off the record and give him a strong, unofficial warning.”
That was the end of it.
Lawrence declined to answer questions from The Australian about the incident, stating: “This matter is the subject of a confidential and legally privileged investigation report and I am not able to make further public comment on that confidential report.”
Burgess was stunned that apparent evidence of Parnov’s behaviour was to be dropped without further investigation or action.
What he didn’t know was that this was not the first time allegations of sexual misconduct had not been properly dealt with.
Fondled, propositioned
In 2013, pole vaulter Alana Quade (nee Boyd) left WAIS and told a WAIS official – in person and verbally – of Parnov’s behaviour.
Lawrence was away on annual leave at the time.
Quade had been propositioned by Parnov when the coach tried to entice her onto his bed to watch a movie on his laptop.
Quade also reached out to members of junior athletes’ teams including a young Kennedy.
“I felt a moral obligation and responsibility to Nina and other underage female athletes in the squad upon leaving Perth to somehow warn them,” Quade says.
In a letter to Athletics Australia, she disclosed Parnov’s behaviour to the governing body’s leadership.
“I put my trust in him, but soon realised that he could not be trusted,” Quade wrote. “At times he was moody, rude, manipulative, sarcastic, domineering, controlling and probably worst of all, displayed inappropriate behaviour toward me. I was warned of Alex’s inappropriate behaviour by other athletes and, since leaving, I felt it was my responsibility to warn (other athletes) of the man he is.”
Quade says an AA official responded to the submission but his only reference to her highlighting Parnov’s behaviour was, “You obviously feel more comfortable with your father as your coach”.
“After this I spoke to an AA board member and he asked if I wanted to pursue anything with regards to what I had said about Alex’s behaviour but I said that I didn’t want any distractions and I just wanted to be as far away from him as possible,” she recalls.
A few weeks later, Quade bumped into fellow pole vaulter Emma Draisey on a plane trip to Brisbane. For the first time, they shared their personal stories about Parnov.
Draisey revealed how Parnov had started forcefully kissing her when they were alone together.
After the chance meeting on the plane, Draisey reached out to Athletics Australia to back up Quade’s complaint.
“Athletics Australia did nothing,” Draisey says. “I spoke twice with a lawyer who was working for AA at the time, and from my conversation it was clear that nothing was going to be done.”
Athletics Australia told The Australian it “has instigated a review of what actions, if any, Athletics Australia took to respond to Alana Quade’s disclosure in 2013. This will include reviewing available documentation and interviewing relevant staff and athletes.”
Get-out-of-jail card
In 2015, another athlete, who The Australian has chosen not to identify at their request, disclosed to WAIS sports psychologist Matthew Bergin that Parnov had engaged in sexualised conduct towards her, including hugging and kissing her on the lips and massaging her in his hotel room when no one else was around.
The athlete was a child at the time of the incident.
Bergin alerted Michael Broadridge, who brought it to Steve Lawrence’s attention.
Lawrence sent a memo to Parnov in May 2015 advising him of the intent to investigate the complaint but added an extraordinary proviso: “I have decided that it is appropriate we confirm that you have not breached WAIS policy in a manner that has infringed on the personal rights of athletes under your guidance.”
In response to questions, Lawrence told The Australian: “I did not prejudge the outcome of any investigation carried out or commissioned by WAIS. I believe the statement you attribute to me has been misquoted.”
An investigation by outside consultant Verifact interviewed four athletes who had been massaged by Parnov but none was willing to raise any concerns. It appears the allegations of hugging and kissing were not passed on to the investigators, and the complaint was shelved.
In April 2019, a female athlete told Burgess the abuse was still going on.
“She started revealing to me some of the things that were happening and showing me some text messages and telling me some stories,” Burgess says.
“The warning didn’t have any effect on Alex. He still seemed confident enough to feel that he could do whatever he wanted.”
Burgess went back to Lawrence and made another complaint about “multiple instances of alleged misconduct towards male and female athletes”, including that Parnov had been taking a cut of the athletes’ earnings, despite being on a generous salary from WAIS.
Mr 15 per cent
As an athlete, Burgess had been required to give Parnov 15 per cent of all his bonuses, prize money and sponsorship deals, in one year alone giving him $25,000.
Olympic champion Steve Hooker paid Parnov a total of $161,256.
One young athlete, Emma Philippe, was paying Parnov about $100 a month in “pole fees”.
“We weren’t meant to be paying for anything to do with pole vault, because that was the whole point of WAIS,” Philippe told The Australian.
“But we were paying ‘pole vault fees’, which he used to say would just cover the cost of poles and that sort of thing. We were paying for a coaching service that we had a scholarship from WAIS for.”
Burgess says he knows of no other coach at WAIS who took money from their athletes.
He says that in 2009 he told Lawrence about Parnov taking part of his earnings and that Lawrence’s response was simply that “he did not have to pay him”.
Lawrence told The Australian an Athletics Program Manager had advised him in 2009 that athletes were paying fees to a “club” run by Parnov’s wife but it could not be confirmed that any payments were made directly to Parnov, which would have been “entirely inappropriate”.
He said the WAIS employment contract was “subsequently revised to clarify that WAIS staff could not charge athletes coaching fees without prior management approval.”
However, Hooker says he had to pay Parnov $50,000 the following year.
“I never paid money to a club run by (Parnov’s wife) Nadia,” Hooker says. “My agreement was with Alex and I paid him directly.”
“I can’t recall Steve Lawrence ever raising the issue of payments to Alex with me.”
WAIS, forced into a corner by Burgess’ new complaint, engaged Perth law firm MDC Legal to investigate.
A number of athletes gave evidence, including Kennedy and Quade.
Burgess was also interviewed. But when his interview statement came back for him to sign, it did not contain his detailed evidence that he had reported the 2016 video to Lawrence.
Burgess says MDC Legal repeatedly failed to answer his questions about why it had not been included.
“I thought something was wrong with the fact they didn’t put my statement about the video, because to me there was motivation for them not to make it public, because it would have been looked into, and it would have been found out that WAIS had had chances to stop this earlier,” says Burgess.
“When I first started at WAIS we all had to do a course about how there was zero tolerance for this stuff. The fact that Parnov got an unofficial warning as the second warning, to me, was completely outrageous. That was the beginning of me feeling that there was a cover-up.
“I remember meeting with Steve at the cafe, I felt that he wanted it to go away. He talked about protecting the brand. That was always brought up. That was Steve’s modus operandi.”
Lawrence denies saying this. He told The Australian: “This is an entirely fictitious and defamatory statement.
“When a complaint was brought to my attention during my position as CEO of WAIS, I acted swiftly to thoroughly address the complaint in accordance with WAIS’ policies and (where necessary) legal advice was sought and received by the institute,” Lawrence said.
Police not told
When WAIS advised Steve Hooker of the investigation in 2019, the Olympic champion jumped at the opportunity to give evidence. Hooker says he gave evidence about the incident of inappropriate behaviour that a female pole vaulter had disclosed to him.
He mentioned Howe and Quade. He also spoke about the agreement he had with Parnov which saw him take a cut of his winnings.
In the aftermath of the investigation, Hooker revisited the summary of his statement.
“The summary overemphasised financial matters and the behaviour towards females was understated,” Hooker says. “And, given that nothing was ever made public about the behaviour, in particular towards female athletes, this was concerning.
“Given I’d raised things that I’d heard first-hand from particular individuals, I did hope that they would have the opportunity to talk, and that would be pursued further by WAIS. And it seems like that was actively not pursued.”
MDC Legal sought to interview Parnov but he submitted his resignation before it completed its investigation.
The investigation substantiated the allegations that Parnov had improperly profited from his employment by taking a cut of his athletes’ winnings, sponsorships and other income.
MDC Legal concluded that Parnov’s conduct resulted in “a pattern of repeated and ongoing sexual harassment towards female athletes over an extended period of time” and recommended a summary of findings be sent to Athletics Australia.
However, it advised that WAIS had no legal obligation to report the findings to police, based on the rationale that investigators had no admissible evidence of child sexual abuse as defined in the WA legislation.
The board did not report the findings to police. It is not clear if the board had regard to the WAIS code of conduct which imposed a clear ethical responsibility to report child sexual abuse.
WAIS released a statement on July 25, 2019 that it had terminated Parnov’s contract after an investigation found he had “breached his employment contract”.
No details of any kind were provided and WAIS said no further comment would be provided “in order to protect the privacy of individuals involved”.
As far as WAIS was concerned, the matter was closed. But not for the athletes.
Kennedy told The Australian she did not believe that the outcome of the 2019 investigation truly represented or brought to light the seriousness of the alleged misconduct.
“I also don’t believe the repercussions post-investigation delivered by WAIS accurately matched the severity of the allegations and findings,” Kennedy said.
“In this instance, I don’t believe the leadership board had the best interests of my wellbeing at heart. I felt this was prevalent during and preceding the investigative process.”
Hooker says none of the victims he knew were at peace after this 2019 investigation.
“They have had to carry a burden not just of their experience but of having to maintain secrecy around them rather than WAIS taking ownership of it. I believe that’s made it particularly hard for a number of people involved,” Hooker says.
‘Treated like a legend’
“They released that statement, and no one seemed to ask any more questions”, Burgess says.
“And my big problem with that is that Alex now is going to get another job somewhere, and he’ll be back on the scene.”
Burgess says he protested to Lawrence about the failure to spell out why Parnov had been sacked, but claims he was told it was “to protect the innocent, to protect (Parnov’s daughter) Liz from embarrassment.”
Lawrence denies saying this.
Staff and athletes were told not to disclose any information about the investigation.
Parnov left Australia and went to live in Europe, applying for jobs as a senior coach. When Burgess heard that Parnov had been feted at a pole vault symposium in Cologne, Germany, he saw red.
“Alex was being treated like a legend and that really upset me, that his legacy was still completely intact.”
Then Burgess got a call from Swiss pole vaulter Angelica Moser, confirming his fears. Parnov was in consideration for a job as head coach of Switzerland’s national team. Moser wanted to know why Parnov had left WAIS. She’d already started training with him.
“She said she’d looked it up and there were no details in the paper so she figured it mustn’t be that serious, which then drove me mad, of course,” Burgess says. “And I told her what I thought.”
Burgess went back to WAIS demanding it release the reason for Parnov’s dismissal before he landed a job somewhere coaching young women.
“My boss talked to Steve Lawrence and came back, and the message from Steve was that, you need to just let it go. I was told that I was overreacting and being paranoid. That it wasn’t my job to worry about girls overseas competing.”
Meanwhile, in November 2021, Swiss vaulter Moser had also called Quade asking questions about why Parnov had lost his job in WA. “I was honest in my response to her,” Quade said.
Following her conversation with Moser, she again reached out to an AA official – and asked “what they are doing about stripping Alex of his coaching accreditation in Australia and advising governing bodies all over the world.”
In June 2022, an integrity officer at World Athletics reached out to Quade about Parnov and she spoke to him. “I was forthcoming with my experience and on request sent him a copy of my WAIS statement,” she said. “I’ve heard nothing since.”
Parnov never got the job in Switzerland. But at WAIS, the noose was tightening on Burgess.
‘Not mentally stable’
Reviled by some at WAIS for having “dobbed” on Parnov, Burgess was already one of the lowest-paid of any head coach.
At his 2023 review he says Lawrence told him he would not be getting a pay rise “based on me being of poor character” and that he would be “exited” if he didn’t improve significantly.
Burgess was angry. He had just coached Nina Kennedy and Kurtis Marschall to gold medals at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. He’d been named Athletics Australia Coach of the Year, an honour he would go on to win again in 2023.
To add to his frustration, Alex Parnov arrived back in Australia and was catching up with current and former WAIS athletes and staff as if nothing had happened.
Dismayed that Parnov was being treated like a returning hero by colleagues who had no idea of the extent of the allegations, Burgess lodged a grievance complaint about Lawrence’s handling of the case, and about the conduct of the MDC Legal investigation.
Kennedy also lodged a new complaint.
In the meantime, Burgess says, Lawrence was suggesting to colleagues that he should be put through a psychiatric evaluation and perhaps be stood down because he “wasn’t mentally stable”.
Asked if he had made this suggestion, Lawrence told The Australian: “It is not appropriate that I comment on Mr Burgess’s mental health.”
WAIS began a grievance process but, astonishingly, once again hired MDC Legal – to assist in an investigation that was partly about the law firm’s own conduct.
The new MDC Legal report cast aspersions on the credibility of both Burgess and Kennedy, noting “errors in some of their evidence, their tendency to generalise and overstate and to make speculative statements”.
The authors of the report found it “difficult to understand why Ms Kennedy fears Mr Lawrence” after she expressed concern at being approached by him after her complaint was submitted.
In September 2023, the WAIS board was replaced and WA Sports Minister David Templeman flagged concerns over the culture at the Institute. Just two weeks later, Lawrence resigned as CEO and Matt Fulton was appointed interim CEO.
The new board agreed to undertake “a series of actions to facilitate a restorative justice process for past misconduct”, which included a review to be conducted by an experienced and respected investigator seconded from the WA Police Force, Inspector Pauline Grant, a 26-year police veteran.
In a draft report obtained by The Australian, Inspector Grant was highly critical of both MDC Legal’s 2018 investigation and its more recent 2023 review.
“It is problematic that MDC were engaged to critique their own work … From page one of the analysis, MDC cast aspersions on Mr Burgess’ and Ms Kennedy’s credibility … this is in stark contrast with a lack of discussion around Mr Lawrence’s credibility,” Grant stated.
“There is significant bias in the report through inconsistent challenges to credibility, repetition of issues that trivialises them, and misstated allegations,” she found, cautioning the board against relying on MDC Legal’s review.
Grant concluded: “It is likely that ongoing abuse, of a sexual and/or coercive nature, was experienced by a number of athletes in the pole vault program, some of whom remain with WAIS as athletes and staff”.
Grant found in the draft report that Lawrence “potentially misled the board” when he refuted Burgess’s complaint that he was victimised by Lawrence after his 2023 complaint.
Lawrence told The Australian: “This matter appears to have occurred post my employment with WAIS and I have no knowledge of this matter, and therefore cannot comment on it.”
Grant also questioned why MDC Legal had found it difficult to understand that Kennedy might fear Lawrence. “If Ms Kennedy’s perception is that Mr Lawrence is complicit in mishandling allegations, then it is very reasonable for her to experience some sort of strong emotional response to his presence,” Grant observed.
Grant found in the draft report that “current available evidence indicates WAIS was made aware of Mr Parnov’s improper conduct in 2013” when Quade informed the acting CEO.
Lawrence denied being briefed by the acting CEO on disclosure of inappropriate conduct.
‘Likelihood of crime’
Grant was highly critical of WAIS’s response to allegations of improper conduct made to a WAIS psychologist in 2015 by an athlete who was a minor at the time of the incidents.
“WAIS could have and/or should have done more in 2015”, she concluded. “Due to the likelihood of criminal offences having been committed, future investigations should be left to the WA Police Force.”
The MDC Legal analysis had found that Lawrence had been made aware of the existence of the 2016 video of Parnov touching Kennedy, and did not undertake any formal action in response to it.
“His explanations were unsatisfactory and his behaviour, as described, fell below expectation,” Grant concluded.
Grant recommended that “due to the likelihood of criminal offences having been committed, future investigations should be left to the WA Police Force.”
She recommended that WAIS make a detailed statement about Parnov’s dismissal and consider seeking assistance from World Athletics to have Parnov banned from Olympics and official events.
But Grant’s report came too late to save Burgess.
After being forcibly denied entry to WAIS in April this year, Burgess was allowed back into the building that afternoon – but only to be handed an ultimatum.
“They said I’d broken the code of conduct, but they wanted to offer me a chance to resign and to save my family from humiliation,” Burgess said.
“I said, what are you saying that I’ve done? And they said, We’re not going to go into that, but we’re telling you that this is the best option for you and your family. It’ll save you a lot of pain and humiliation’.”
WAIS chief executive Matt Fulton declined to answer questions about the meeting, telling The Australian it would “not make public comments on individuals’ employment matters including those related to Mr Burgess resignation from WAIS”.
Burgess acknowledges that the strain of the past few years has had a profound emotional impact on him, and that he has at times made inappropriate comments to his bosses and become highly upset, sometimes breaking down in tears.
But he doesn’t believe he has done anything to warrant being forced to resign, or to leave Kennedy and Marschall without their coach in the crucial final lead-up to the Paris Olympic Games.
“Three months before the Olympics, and they were willing to blow the program up for the two marquee athletes at WAIS,” says Burgess, still shocked. “It was crazy.”
Fulton declined to answer a question from The Australian about whether he believed it was in the best interests of the athletes being coached by Burgess for him to be asked to resign less than four months before the Paris Olympics, stating that WAIS “would not make public comments on individuals’ employment matters” – although that was not the question asked.
At a snap press conference on Saturday after The Weekend Australian revealed how at least seven women alleged they were sexually harassed and inappropriately touched by Parnov – and that WA Police were now investigating “potential criminal conduct” – WAIS chairman Neale Fong conceded the institute had not done enough to protect its athletes.
Dr Fong claimed WAIS had only been aware of Kennedy’s complaint and the new board was not aware of any of the allegations made by the other athletes who spoke to this masthead.
The chairman also acknowledged that Burgess was “impacted significantly by the behaviour of Parnov and potentially by the organisation’s failure to deal with that” and was “very deeply hopeful that we could bring some closure to his issues as well”.
Meanwhile, overseas, Burgess remains a highly regarded coach, with the dual Olympic champion and world record holder Armand “Mondo” Duplantis seeking him out to coach him when his father can’t. The Duplantis family say they are dismayed by Burgess’ treatment.
“I trust him as a coach and I trust him as a friend, he’s the guy when I am not there, I get him to help Mondo,” Greg Duplantis, coach of his son Armand, said.
“When he lost his job, I was completely shocked.”
Triumph in Paris
Alone and without support from Fulton or the board, Burgess agreed to go without a fight. But he was determined to continue coaching his two star athletes, even if he had to do it without pay.
“It was just unfathomable for me to let it go at that point”, he says. “It had been five years in the making.”
Athletics Australia stepped in with a short-term contract which was severed this month. AA say they don’t have the budget for him.
Marschall overcame a serious ankle injury to make the men’s final in Paris, finishing sixth.
Kennedy memorably won gold in Paris, the only WAIS Athletics athlete to do so.
After the triumphant win, Burgess’s emotion spilled over and he was captured on camera giving “the bird” to those in authority.
“I felt like in the past five years they had been trying to take me down,” Burgess says, “but we got the result – an Olympic gold medal – despite them trying to take me down.”
Kennedy says she wants other athletes to know she is determined to keep fighting on their behalf and to hold to account the organisations that allowed harm to persist for so many, for so long.
“While I am just one voice in this story, I hope it will drive the urgent, positive change needed to ensure that athletes everywhere are protected, respected and supported – here in Australia and globally,” Kennedy says.
“This win-at-all-cost mentality, deeply embedded in sporting culture, must end.”