2020 Olympics: Aussies left reeling by stunning revelations of body-shaming, bullying in women’s hockey

Body-shaming, bullying, threats of being kicked, pushed so hard that they coughed up blood – the shocking inside story of the toxic Australian women’s hockey environment.

Fast-tracked into Australia’s high-performance program when she was still in her teens, Sally* was prepared to do whatever it took to represent the Hockeyroos at the Olympics.

So she trained hard, played even harder and hung on every word her coaches told her.

A prodigious talent, it wasn’t long before Sally got the call-up to join the senior national team.

Players are threatening to leave the Hockeyroos if changes aren’t forthcoming.

Then one day, unexpectedly, her coach pulled her aside and said something that knocked her for six.

“He told me I could be the best player in the world if I just wasn’t so fat.”

Sally’s world soon caved in. She stopped eating and covered up the mirrors in her home because she couldn’t bear to see images of herself.

She stopped socialising with her best friends because she was scared she might be tempted to snack.

None of that impressed senior staff members, who had started ordering players to undergo weekly skinfold tests so he could measure their body fat percentage.

If ever they were unhappy with the test results, those staffers would scream at players in front of all their teammates.“What the f..k?” Sally was asked. “Can’t you control what you shove in your mouth?”

As punishment, Sally was made to run extra laps of the field after the other players had finished training. It made no difference that she was bawling her eyes out.

Sally never made it to the Olympics. She quit the sport at 21.

The final straw was seeing her father break down after he put his arm around her and pleaded with her to stop because he was so worried about her health and wellbeing.

The problems in the Australian camp have been festering for more than a decade.

Sally says she’s fine now that she’s left the program, but her story is not an isolated one.

Other women — both players and staff — have also provided disturbing, deeply personal accounts to News Corp about the culture of body-shaming that has existed in the Australian women’s hockey team for more than a decade.

One team staff member who previously worked with the squad long before the current coaches took over, speaking on condition of anonymity, saw several players develop serious eating disorders, including bulimia.

This not only left players drained of energy, but some needing urgent intervention after self-harming, including alcohol abuse.

Accusations of bullying in the system are also rife.

Both current and past players have complained about being belittled and pushed way beyond what is acceptable.

One player, a teenager at the time, was told by a strength and conditioning trainer that she would be “kicked in the c..t” if she couldn’t lift a weight at the gym.

Another player was accused of being a slacker when she told a trainer she was having difficulty breathing at training and coughing up blood.

She was told to “f..k off and see a physio”.

Days later, she was diagnosed with pneumonia and hospitalised.

Australia have a proud history - who could forget this success at the 2000 Olympics?

She missed the 2016 Rio Olympics but made a comeback and claimed a silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, then promptly quit.

The players wrote a letter to the board that same year complaining about the management style of the new head coach Paul Gaudoin and the high-performance director Toni Cumpston, but nothing much changed so people started walking out the door.

Madi Ratcliffe was among the players who departed. An emerging star, she was just 21.

Earmarked as a possible future captain, Ratcliffe had been invited into the leadership group but fell out after she made the mistake of questioning a staff member at a team meeting.

“He responded by asking me how many games had I played, as if I wasn’t worthy of speaking,” Ratcliffe said.

Three captains have also quit and more players are threatening to leave unless changes are made.

One player officially named in the Hockeyroos squad for next year’s postponed Olympics told News Corp she will pull out of Tokyo.

“I have lost faith in the board as well as no trust in the CEO, high-performance director and head coach. I can no longer pursue my lifelong dream under this regime,” she said.

Many of the first-hand accounts won’t even be heard by the independent investigators who have been appointed to oversee Hockey Australia’s review into the sport’s toxic culture.

Under the terms of the inquiry, which opened this week, only players and staff who have been involved in the high-performance set-up since January 1, 2017, will be invited to testify, even though it’s an open secret the problems within the program have been going on for well over a decade.

News Corp has obtained another letter sent to Hockey Australia’s board of directors by the leadership team that addresses the deep-rooted problems with the system.

According to the letter, senior players had become so frustrated their serious complaints about the culture of the program were not being taken seriously that they were ready to walk away from the sport en masse.

“We are entitled to an environment that is free of discrimination and upholds human rights,” the leadership group wrote.

“The present environment is one in which our wellbeing and performance, and thus the Australian hockey reputation and pride, is being compromised and damaged.”

That letter was written in 2010.

* not her real name