Leigh Nugent

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It’s not OK to blame the victim Leigh Nugent

21 Feb 12:57pm

Filed under: Australian Swimming, Leigh Nugent, Olympics, Sport

Australian swimming coach Leigh Nugent clearly has bushfires to put out, but one of the nastier outbreaks he must fast address is the allegation that when harassment of female swimmers was brought to his attention his reaction was to blame the female swimmers.

I'm just the most senior member of the team ... what could I do?

News.com.au reports that the head swim coach’s immediate response to allegations of misbehaviour by the men’s relay team, accused to of harassing female swimmers with prank calls at the team’s Manchester camp, was “your girls are flirting with the dream team”.

Rather than take seriously a report of the incident by another coach and a senior swimmer, Nugent chose the old chestnut tactic of brushing off the interference with the young women as just “childish behaviour”. A bit of high-spirited nonsense from the lads?

Continue reading "It’s not OK to blame the victim Leigh Nugent" »

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Tim says:

01:41pm | 21/02/13

*head banging against wall* Kill me now. They received a couple of prank calls and that’s harrassment that’s worthy of instant action and sanction by the head coach? Mountain meet molehill. Read more »
marley says:

01:38pm | 21/02/13

I would just point out, the girls performed better than the boys. Maybe the boys would have performed better if they’d focussed on swimming instead of making prank calls. Read more »

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