An open letter to the new IOC President
RE: Your role in promoting safe sport and the protection of athletes from all forms of harassment and abuse.
Dear President-elect Coventry,
Nearly 21 per cent of professional women athletes have experienced sexual abuse as a child in sport – almost double the rate of male athletes at 11 per cent. Only 7% of women athletes disclose the violence they face.
In reality, we do not know the true scale of the issue. We do know that not enough is being done to prevent violence against women in sport.
While for many, the Olympic Games serves as a beacon of hope, for our community, the reality of abusive coaches, overreaching journalists, and convicted rapists on the pitch casts a dark cloud. Because of this, you are inheriting an organisation that has not earned the trust of athletes. This trust cannot be lured by the usual cycle of dialogues that only lead to more dialogues. Only through athlete-centered transformative action can a trusted partnership can be built.
We know this first hand as international athletes with our own lived experience of abusive relationships in sport and Co-founders of Kyniska Advocacy, the UK’s only athlete and survivor led safe sport organisation, where we work tirelessly to support survivors of abuse in sport every day.
In your manifesto, you listed 5 key priorities. We strongly suggest a 6th:
The safety of all athletes and a commitment to safeguarding all athletes from harassment and abuse.
It is our belief that the safety of athletes should be your top priority. Not an after thought, or lumped in with anti-doping and corruption. Safeguarding athletes from abuse is a unique challenge with life-long consequences when the system fails. It requires individual attention with the appropriate skills and voices to create and uphold a system that works for the athletes it promises to protect.
Our recommendations:
Introduce a Safe Sport Commission, led by athletes with lived experience, to develop a collaborative long-term safe sport strategy for the Olympic movement and support safe sport implementation in countries around the world.
Commit to engaging lived experience voices at every level of decision making. Survivors of abuse should have a seat at the table, not treated as case studies. Trust can only be built through meaningful action.
Conduct a review into how a convicted rapist was allowed to compete at the 2024 Olympic games, and why the IOC, in its silence, was complicit in the decision.
As the first female president, we know you will face unprecedented challenges, pushback, and scrutiny. But you have an opportunity that cannot be missed. Not only to descriptively represent us, but substantively represent us - and the needs of women athletes everywhere.
We ask that you find the courage to build on the work of your predecessors and reach further to establish a new standard of safe sport for all, everywhere.
We would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss how we can advance this agenda together.
Yours in Sport,
Mhairi Maclennan and Kate Seary
Co-Founders, Kyniska Advocacy
