Triple Olympic champion calls for more swim coach education

Triple Olympic swimming champion Libby Trickett has called for more education for male coaches when it comes to female athletes and weight.

Libby Trickett. Picture: Tara Croser.

Triple Olympic champion Libby Trickett felt body-shamed during her illustrious career and has called for more swim coach education on women’s health and bodies.

Dual Olympic silver medallist Maddie Groves sensationally withdrew from Saturday’s Australian team swim trials while stating “body shaming” existed in the sport and making claims of a sexist and misogynistic culture.

Trickett agreed with Groves that “body-shaming” happened in swimming and said the blunt way messages were delivered by coaches about skin folds, and general weight, could be extremely harmful for a female athlete’s self-esteem.

“The reality is – this is speaking to swimming – there’s a lot of male coaches and they don’t know women’s bodies, and how to talk sensitively to young women whose bodies are often changing,” Trickett said.

“There were situations during my career where I felt the (verbal) delivery around skin folds could have been better. I understand the conversations have to be had around skin folds. I know we have to be able to discuss skin folds, and muscle composition, but the messages around these issues have to be delivered without compromising a female athlete’s self-esteem.

“As women it is drilled into us that our weight is our worth …”

“I know when I was told to get my skin folds down, that I interpreted that as ‘I am shit’, but I think the message was simply ‘you have to drop your skin folds’ ... but when you do have conversations as a female athlete around weight you can feel really exposed. We are already vulnerable in what we have to wear for swimming.”

Trickett said she had not experienced the “pervy” culture that Groves spoke about but did not want to “invalidate” the 26-year-old swimmer’s experience.

“I think it is a real shame Maddie is not going (to the Australian swimming trials)”, Trickett, who won seven Olympic medals, said.

“I don’t know what the specifics of her situation are, I would never invalidate her experience, I would not say, no, she didn’t have an issue, and I support her getting the help she needs, if there are issues they need to be looked at, they should be looked at. But I haven’t experienced that in my swimming career, I didn’t feel that during my time.”

Groves has put the spotlight on Swimming Australia’s gender issues and its treatment of women. There have been just two female coaches on the Australian Olympic swim team.

No female coaches are expected to make the Tokyo Olympics team.

The last was Tracey Menzies, who coached Ian Thorpe at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Australia’s only other Olympic female swim coach is Hall of Famer Ursula Carlile, who coached Shane Gould way back in 1972.

Groves, in a series of social media posts, has said her health battles with endometriosis and adenomyosis had not been taken seriously at times by high-performance staff.

Trickett said when she was competing, male coaches had little understanding about women’s bodies.

“The other thing is that male coaches could be more educated on is women’s bodies and women’s health issues,” Trickett said. “It is important coaches are very aware especially considering many girls enter the sport and then their bodies change going through puberty and coaches need to be able to adapt to our new bodies.”

Groves quit the swim trials on Wednesday, saying “let this be a lesson to all misogynistic perverts in sport and their boot lickers”.

Groves drew the support of her Rio Olympics teammate Taylor McKeown. “You’ve put up with so much shit mads, and been on your own for it. You’re a strong woman,” McKeown wrote on Groves’s Instagram page.

Swimming Australia president Kieren Perkins said the sport was taking Groves’s allegations seriously. “We need to manage the safety of our athletes,” Perkins told the ABC on Friday. “That is paramount to us.”