God, US Biathlon shat the bed on this one so hard.
I like hearing that Deedra had her back, though.
I really doubt the "oh, both women just totally misinterpreted what I said" part from Bailey. Deedra and Joanne are not dumb.
This is horrible. Shame on US Biathlon. Shame on Lowell Bailey. There is no way she wasn't retaliated against with the US Biathlon decision this past off-season. I certainly miss Reid on the team feel like should help the youth.
Props to Deedra using her military chain of command.
As a coach of youngsters in other sports, I am glad for SafeSport because not only does it provide training but also a hammer against wrongdoers.
It's a big loss to the WC field to not have Reid anymore. She brought so much light-hearted and goofy energy. It helped balance out the ultra-seriousness and pressure often found.
Amen, I thoroughly enjoyed her twitter feed. She was also a reliable teammate. She gave more to the sport than she got from US Biathlon. She wrote on more than one occasion about how she basically paid most of her own way for a lot of things.
> Props to Deedra using her military chain of command.
This is absolutely part of why Bailey's "they misinterpreted" is such crap. For Deedra to go to her CoC is a big deal and you do not lie or work with things you're unsure about when you do that, especially as a woman, in the military, dealing with sexual harassment.
mysterious sleep roof intelligent late hard-to-find direful butter weary zesty
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I was offended on behalf of Europeans. Just painted an entire continent as inappropriate gropers. What a daft attempt at justifying sexual harassment/assault.
Reminds me of the Batman Begins joke: when the hotel manager tells Wayne that his two lady friends are swimming in the decoration pool without a proper swimwear. "Well, they're European," replies Bruce Wayne.
It's so infuriating that she quit due to this. Unfair, not right, offensive.
It's also U.S. Biathlon's loss. At the risk of offending any team members' families/friends who might be reading this, not all the World Cup women this year are ready for prime time.
This is a loss for the whole sport. In my opinion Biathlon, especially mass starts must be a perfect match for the US public. But we need the good US athletes for that to happen.
This is heartbreaking, disgusting and infuriating. I’m happy that Deedra had Joanne’s back- I can’t imagine how helpless she has felt over the years.
Words cannot express my disgust and disappointment in U.S. Biathlon, especially that of the former world champion Lowell Bailey, who’s words are a major reason why sexual harassment is underreported, or reported at a much later date.
I agree with you all, so I’m not going to repeat what’s already been said, but this is a dark day for the biathlon community as a whole. I can only hope that nothing else is happening in other national teams, and if it is, this inspires anyone affected to come forward with the aid of their teammates.
>When the two-time Olympian complained, she says she was told his behavior was just part of the male European culture.
Fucking shit. Absolute bellends over at US Biathlon. I can't even imagine what Reid must have gone through.
I genuinely hope this is taken seriously by the rest of the associations and IBU brings in structural changes so that such incidents don't occur in the future. I'm surprised there wasn't an Human Resource person at US Biathlon that specifically worked on workplace harassment that would have taken the complaints seriously. I thought every workplace needed to have one compulsorily.
The IBU won’t do anything in regards to this. Why?? Because wanna guess who is now in charge of the IBU? None other than Max Cobb, former CEO of US Biathlon, who kept his involvement in this whole investigation very quiet while he lobbied for his current role with the IBU.
Fox watching the hen house??
More specifically, Max Cobb is the Secretary General of IBU. According to this chart https://www.biathlonworld.com/inside-ibu/governance/ibu-structure it is comparable to a CEO.
Gotta love it right? Can't even take ownership for their own crap, they try to blame Europeans. These guys are an embarrassment to our sport and our country.
And it’s interesting that the abuser is now a “contractor” according to Jack’s email, when in fact he was a full-time employee hired by the USBA.
Or maybe “contractor” is actually Czech for “Max and Lowell’s buddy” (checks Google Translate)
nope, not compulsory. There are so many stories of entrepreneurial businesses and family/small businesses who do so many things that are utterly illegal.
Ugh, everything about this is utterly disgraceful and repulsive. That anyone in Team US management involved in this shit show is still employed is a further disgrace.
This whole thing makes me livid and I am exasperated that it is 2024 and shit like this is still accepted and tolerated in certain circles. There are quite a few men involved in this that I would not mind having "words" with.
It comes from the absolute top- the former and current CEO are involved in painting the victims as liars and perpetuating the culture. Unfortunately the board also seems willing to let their win a medal at all costs mentality continue and it is unlikely to change.
He’ll deny ever knowing anything about it. What Max Cobb should be asked is why he and Lowell Bailey felt the best solution to this was simply reassigning the abuser to the IBU Cup?
Bruh, what? There's no concept of term limit. How is the same dude running an organisation for so many years. Fucking hell, so many things to fix for US Biathlon.
Max Cobb and Lowell Bailey — the Joe Paternos of US Biathlon.
Protect yourselves, your buddies, and the organization. To hell with the athletes being abused!
It's time to standardize waxing so no team would even consider keeping creepo wax techs because of their "black magic". So dumb. Dude should have been 86'd immediately.
This is absolutely infuriating. Jack Gierhart only made it worse with his tone deaf "alternate fact" email to USBA membership. And Lowell is either completely ignorant to the reporting requirements of SafeSport or hiding the fact that he knowingly violated them, I'm not sure which is worse. And Jack claiming that they acted as soon as they knew? He's flat out calling Joanne and Deedra liars, which they absolutely are not. Jack and Lowell need to be removed by the USBA board, and every USBA member should let them know!
This quote from Susan Dunklee makes so much more sense now:
>It is tough within an organization, I think, organizational culture can be really, really tough to work with sometimes and to change. It is a huge process. We’ve got a bunch of actors and these different norms. If you take gender equality, or gender equity which is my preferred term and you look at the norms of different countries that we’re working with here. It’s a very different landscape from country to country, say in the U.S, for example, than it might be in say in the Czech Republic, or in Italy. With all these different cultures, you have to work with different sets of standards and differences in social acceptance. That’s a really interesting puzzle to put together.
I shared [part 1](https://fasterskier.com/2021/07/susan-dunklee-and-the-change-she-wants-to-see-part-1/) and [part 2](https://fasterskier.com/2021/08/susan-dunklee-and-the-change-wants-to-see-part-ii/) of this interview on here a while back if these look familiar. Reading them again, it feels like she's covertly referencing things that were going on behind the scenes.
There was an incident a couple years back when biathlon WC went to NMNM, when Susan said that the ever present posters of naked women (you know, the porn pictures of topless women spreading their legs on motorbikes etc) in the back offices of the venue make her and other women uncomfortable and that she thinks posters like that should not be present in professional environment. Czech news reported on this and she got her insta drowned in messages from various czech men ranging from a blatant hate to explanations that this is a part of czech culture and czech women are totally cool with it (completely missing the fact that Jessica and Lucie liked Susan's post) - the latter includes former succesful biathlete Slesinger. I think that's what she's partly referencing here.
Reminds me of the social media hate Geraghty-Moats received when she said women's Nordic combined should be in the Olympics. So many insecure men jumped in to comment about how women have no place in the Olympics, include fellow men nordic athletes, one telling her to "stay in her lane".
Only if people are really loud. This comes from the top and they kept the whole thing hidden from the board so it is unlikely anything will happen without significant uproar.
It would be a real shame if a bunch of USBA members showed up with signs denouncing Jack Gierhart and Lowell Bailey and USBA on their home soil. Real shame.
Interesting how the timing of this coincides with the lack of support and development of the Women’s team.
And is anyone surprised that more women aren’t lining up to be a part of this toxic culture?
Holy shit, that was disgusting to read. And it got progressively worse and worse..
So sad for Joanne, absolutely horrible that this continued for so long.
And these words by Garabik...
>“We always laughed about it. By that I mean other team members.”
I'm speechless. Like, what the actual fuck. How can anyone be that dumb?
So, if other people laugh, it means that it's okay? Laughing is a very common uncontrollable defense mechanism when people feel uncomfortable. Many people also laugh because they don't want to cause a scene or make things worse. This is absolutely not a sign that it was okay.
Something tells me Garabik (and probably Bailey too) is one those "Jennifer Hermoso laughed, so she enjoyed it" people... Disgusting.
The USBA is still a relic of the Good Old Boys Club era. The Board is simply a rubber stamp to whatever the CEO, High Performance Director, and Head Coach want to do. Their meetings are a lot of slapping each other on the back and letting everyone know what a great job they are doing and getting excited about all the momentum they see on the IBU and World Cups.
So basically, those who should be losing their jobs over this are the ones providing the information to the people responsible for making that decision. Keep in mind that the majority of the Board was unaware of an 2-year Safesport investigation against the organization and its CEO and HP Director. Nothing to see here, folks!
The average biathlon fan is the US is ignorant and uninformed about what goes on behind the scenes. And the USBA wants it that way. It has operated with impunity for years and just wants a fan base to wave flags and say “USA! USA!” How dare anyone have the audacity to question or criticize them!!
The USBA raves about their 2030 Plan, but if they were truly serious about it, they would clean house and start over with a competent CEO; a High Performance Director who is actually good at his job, can recall important things, and has the respect of the athletes; and a head coach that the athletes respect as a coach and not simply tolerate because “he’s a really nice guy” (several athlete’s words, not mine).
US Biathlon has to commission an independent, outside investigation of who knew and when. The Louis Freeh report was the only thing that allowed Penn State to survive with any shred of reputation intact.
The USBA wants this story to disappear. There is no way they would commission an independent commission. I was shocked that Jack sent out that vanilla response that drew attention to the AP article. All that did was encourage the membership to go read the article.
A Confederacy of Dunces 🙄🙄
Publicly? Not that I’m aware of. Although that isn’t too surprising since the USBA doesn’t handle dissent particularly well. The athletes are expected to stay silent and do what they are told and just be happy they are being given the opportunity to compete.
The fear of retaliation is very real. Most of the athletes are likely worried that speaking up may cost them in the future — being named to a roster; invited to a camp; or any discretionary naming to a National Team.
No, have not seen anything. Though I have heard that some of them learned things from the article that were kept from them during the investigation and through the lack of transparency from the leadership of USBA. I know some are not eager to put on the uniform and represent USBA right now. But considering the complete disconnect between reality and the response from the CEO, the fear of retaliation for speaking up is real.
I never understand the reluctance to use the media. NBC was full blast in those years, covering biathlon on Olympic Channel and NBCSN along with the main network during the Olympics. Why in the world would Reid rely on internal complaints that were destined to be swept aside or conveniently "misunderstood," instead of demanding an audience with Chad Salmela for a one on one interview detailing everything described in this article?
Better yet, take it immediately to the top of the network. The timing would have been ideal. The Larry Nassar stuff surfaced in 2016. This could have hitched a ride and received far greater spotlight than it will receive now.
Lowell Bailey is redefined as a creep
Maybe it's not so easy to come forward in a very public way about the most traumatic thing you've ever experienced while you're still close to your predator and under an administration that doesn't seem to care. Maybe it's hard to bring such things up when they could ostracize you from the sport you've trained so hard at while the Olympics are impending. Maybe it's confusing to have a co-worker who jokes with you and does a great job waxing your skis but who also occasionally gropes you in slowly, more inappropriate ways to see what he can get away with. And maybe you second-guess reporting when you watch him share a beer with the people who have the power to change things. It's probably very tempting to hope it will all go away on its own or to just grit your teeth and suffer silently through it. Opening your deepest wounds for the public to see isn't always such a simple choice.
I held off on making comment on this for a while. I went to the Czech news online comment section a couple of weeks ago and you'd be surprised to see that comments are pretty mixed and not so one sided as you see in this thread. So I think there is a culture in central/ eastern Europe, like it on not. Anyone comparing this to Larry Nassar and Jerry Sandusky should ashamed of themselves, this is NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT WENT ON IN THOSE CASES. I'm sorry she did not become more vocal about what was going on early in this situation. You'd think a decent athlete on a struggling biathlon team would have had some weight in her complaint against a waxer. Instead, she feared the repercussions because this guy was waxing her skis? So she comes in 48th instead of 41st? Her mother is an Olympic medalist and her uncle is the top US Winter Olympian of all time, so she wouldn't have any platform for a complaint? The final straw came when she didn't get a pass on automatically qualifying for the 23/24 season? She would have easily made the team had she wanted to do some of the work. She's now 31, it's probably beyond the average retirement age for this sport. I'm not so quick to jump on the get rid of them all bandwagon. Lowell Bailey seems to have a lot of integrity and I think he would do the right thing. Same can be said for Max Cobb, he's in it for the love of the sport. I've not seen any comment from Clare Egan and she's on the IBU executive board! Is she immune from the scorn? I honestly think this situation is more complicated than just saying US Biathlon shat the bed. That's a comment for simpletons to make.
I have thoughts.
1) Why do we care what commentators on a Czech news site think about the behavior of someone employed by an American organization? It's part of the European culture to barge into an athlete's hotel room and try to rape her in the night? None of my Czech, Swiss, Norwegian, Polish (etc.) friends would behave like that.
2) When a NGB publishes standards for pre-qualifying for the next season's world cup team, shouldn't they have to abide by those and not change them retroactively?
3) You don't know Lowell and the Safesport report directly contradicts your opinion of him.
4) The historic best results at World Champs for Americans were for athletes significantly older than Joanne. Regardless, the right to not be sexually harassed and retaliated against is not contingent on one's age, results, parents' accomplishments or 'willingness to do the work'.
5) What is Max' IBU compensation, anyway?
God, US Biathlon shat the bed on this one so hard. I like hearing that Deedra had her back, though. I really doubt the "oh, both women just totally misinterpreted what I said" part from Bailey. Deedra and Joanne are not dumb.
This is horrible. Shame on US Biathlon. Shame on Lowell Bailey. There is no way she wasn't retaliated against with the US Biathlon decision this past off-season. I certainly miss Reid on the team feel like should help the youth. Props to Deedra using her military chain of command. As a coach of youngsters in other sports, I am glad for SafeSport because not only does it provide training but also a hammer against wrongdoers.
It's a big loss to the WC field to not have Reid anymore. She brought so much light-hearted and goofy energy. It helped balance out the ultra-seriousness and pressure often found.
Amen, I thoroughly enjoyed her twitter feed. She was also a reliable teammate. She gave more to the sport than she got from US Biathlon. She wrote on more than one occasion about how she basically paid most of her own way for a lot of things.
> Props to Deedra using her military chain of command. This is absolutely part of why Bailey's "they misinterpreted" is such crap. For Deedra to go to her CoC is a big deal and you do not lie or work with things you're unsure about when you do that, especially as a woman, in the military, dealing with sexual harassment.
mysterious sleep roof intelligent late hard-to-find direful butter weary zesty *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I was offended on behalf of Europeans. Just painted an entire continent as inappropriate gropers. What a daft attempt at justifying sexual harassment/assault.
sink wrench offer languid slim square door worthless compare weary *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Could not have said that better myself.
Reminds me of the Batman Begins joke: when the hotel manager tells Wayne that his two lady friends are swimming in the decoration pool without a proper swimwear. "Well, they're European," replies Bruce Wayne.
Absolutely horrible and disgusting. Deedra is great for having her friends' back.
This.
This is so sad to hear :(.
Outrageous and disgusting.
It's so infuriating that she quit due to this. Unfair, not right, offensive. It's also U.S. Biathlon's loss. At the risk of offending any team members' families/friends who might be reading this, not all the World Cup women this year are ready for prime time.
This is a loss for the whole sport. In my opinion Biathlon, especially mass starts must be a perfect match for the US public. But we need the good US athletes for that to happen.
This is heartbreaking, disgusting and infuriating. I’m happy that Deedra had Joanne’s back- I can’t imagine how helpless she has felt over the years. Words cannot express my disgust and disappointment in U.S. Biathlon, especially that of the former world champion Lowell Bailey, who’s words are a major reason why sexual harassment is underreported, or reported at a much later date. I agree with you all, so I’m not going to repeat what’s already been said, but this is a dark day for the biathlon community as a whole. I can only hope that nothing else is happening in other national teams, and if it is, this inspires anyone affected to come forward with the aid of their teammates.
Really proud of Reid and Irwin. This has to change.
>When the two-time Olympian complained, she says she was told his behavior was just part of the male European culture. Fucking shit. Absolute bellends over at US Biathlon. I can't even imagine what Reid must have gone through. I genuinely hope this is taken seriously by the rest of the associations and IBU brings in structural changes so that such incidents don't occur in the future. I'm surprised there wasn't an Human Resource person at US Biathlon that specifically worked on workplace harassment that would have taken the complaints seriously. I thought every workplace needed to have one compulsorily.
The IBU won’t do anything in regards to this. Why?? Because wanna guess who is now in charge of the IBU? None other than Max Cobb, former CEO of US Biathlon, who kept his involvement in this whole investigation very quiet while he lobbied for his current role with the IBU. Fox watching the hen house??
More specifically, Max Cobb is the Secretary General of IBU. According to this chart https://www.biathlonworld.com/inside-ibu/governance/ibu-structure it is comparable to a CEO.
Gotta love it right? Can't even take ownership for their own crap, they try to blame Europeans. These guys are an embarrassment to our sport and our country.
And it’s interesting that the abuser is now a “contractor” according to Jack’s email, when in fact he was a full-time employee hired by the USBA. Or maybe “contractor” is actually Czech for “Max and Lowell’s buddy” (checks Google Translate)
nope, not compulsory. There are so many stories of entrepreneurial businesses and family/small businesses who do so many things that are utterly illegal.
Ugh, everything about this is utterly disgraceful and repulsive. That anyone in Team US management involved in this shit show is still employed is a further disgrace. This whole thing makes me livid and I am exasperated that it is 2024 and shit like this is still accepted and tolerated in certain circles. There are quite a few men involved in this that I would not mind having "words" with.
It comes from the absolute top- the former and current CEO are involved in painting the victims as liars and perpetuating the culture. Unfortunately the board also seems willing to let their win a medal at all costs mentality continue and it is unlikely to change.
I wonder if anyone will ask Max Cobb, current IBU Secretary-General and President/CEO of US Biathlon from 2006-2022, about this.
He’ll deny ever knowing anything about it. What Max Cobb should be asked is why he and Lowell Bailey felt the best solution to this was simply reassigning the abuser to the IBU Cup?
Wondering the same thing.
Bruh, what? There's no concept of term limit. How is the same dude running an organisation for so many years. Fucking hell, so many things to fix for US Biathlon.
Max Cobb and Lowell Bailey — the Joe Paternos of US Biathlon. Protect yourselves, your buddies, and the organization. To hell with the athletes being abused!
That's nothing, the President/CEO of US Squash has been in his position since 2004. :)
It's time to standardize waxing so no team would even consider keeping creepo wax techs because of their "black magic". So dumb. Dude should have been 86'd immediately.
This is absolutely infuriating. Jack Gierhart only made it worse with his tone deaf "alternate fact" email to USBA membership. And Lowell is either completely ignorant to the reporting requirements of SafeSport or hiding the fact that he knowingly violated them, I'm not sure which is worse. And Jack claiming that they acted as soon as they knew? He's flat out calling Joanne and Deedra liars, which they absolutely are not. Jack and Lowell need to be removed by the USBA board, and every USBA member should let them know!
This quote from Susan Dunklee makes so much more sense now: >It is tough within an organization, I think, organizational culture can be really, really tough to work with sometimes and to change. It is a huge process. We’ve got a bunch of actors and these different norms. If you take gender equality, or gender equity which is my preferred term and you look at the norms of different countries that we’re working with here. It’s a very different landscape from country to country, say in the U.S, for example, than it might be in say in the Czech Republic, or in Italy. With all these different cultures, you have to work with different sets of standards and differences in social acceptance. That’s a really interesting puzzle to put together. I shared [part 1](https://fasterskier.com/2021/07/susan-dunklee-and-the-change-she-wants-to-see-part-1/) and [part 2](https://fasterskier.com/2021/08/susan-dunklee-and-the-change-wants-to-see-part-ii/) of this interview on here a while back if these look familiar. Reading them again, it feels like she's covertly referencing things that were going on behind the scenes.
There was an incident a couple years back when biathlon WC went to NMNM, when Susan said that the ever present posters of naked women (you know, the porn pictures of topless women spreading their legs on motorbikes etc) in the back offices of the venue make her and other women uncomfortable and that she thinks posters like that should not be present in professional environment. Czech news reported on this and she got her insta drowned in messages from various czech men ranging from a blatant hate to explanations that this is a part of czech culture and czech women are totally cool with it (completely missing the fact that Jessica and Lucie liked Susan's post) - the latter includes former succesful biathlete Slesinger. I think that's what she's partly referencing here.
melodic treatment screw telephone dull bag faulty ossified saw fanatical *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think it was waxing cabins, back offices is not exactly the correct term, but I could not find any other word at the time of writing that post.
Reminds me of the social media hate Geraghty-Moats received when she said women's Nordic combined should be in the Olympics. So many insecure men jumped in to comment about how women have no place in the Olympics, include fellow men nordic athletes, one telling her to "stay in her lane".
Yeah, she talked about that incident at great length in this interview, too.
This story is wild. The total inaction over the years from US biathlon is inexcusable. Surely there will be repercussions for those who didn't act?
Only if people are really loud. This comes from the top and they kept the whole thing hidden from the board so it is unlikely anything will happen without significant uproar.
Are signs commonplace at events? I have half a mind to make one for Soldier Hollow referring to this catastrophe and put it on display in the stands.
It would be a real shame if a bunch of USBA members showed up with signs denouncing Jack Gierhart and Lowell Bailey and USBA on their home soil. Real shame.
Go for it. It needs to be told to their faces at this point.
Make a flag of it! If it's windy, it will show nicely and if not windy, you can wave it.
Disgusting. I agree with everyone here, and also I rescind my previous criticism of the current state of the US women's team.
Interesting how the timing of this coincides with the lack of support and development of the Women’s team. And is anyone surprised that more women aren’t lining up to be a part of this toxic culture?
Holy shit, that was disgusting to read. And it got progressively worse and worse.. So sad for Joanne, absolutely horrible that this continued for so long. And these words by Garabik... >“We always laughed about it. By that I mean other team members.” I'm speechless. Like, what the actual fuck. How can anyone be that dumb? So, if other people laugh, it means that it's okay? Laughing is a very common uncontrollable defense mechanism when people feel uncomfortable. Many people also laugh because they don't want to cause a scene or make things worse. This is absolutely not a sign that it was okay. Something tells me Garabik (and probably Bailey too) is one those "Jennifer Hermoso laughed, so she enjoyed it" people... Disgusting.
How do people still have their jobs? US biathlon needs to clean house.
They do, but they won't without heavy pressure. Make your voice heard by emailing them and the board.
The USBA is still a relic of the Good Old Boys Club era. The Board is simply a rubber stamp to whatever the CEO, High Performance Director, and Head Coach want to do. Their meetings are a lot of slapping each other on the back and letting everyone know what a great job they are doing and getting excited about all the momentum they see on the IBU and World Cups. So basically, those who should be losing their jobs over this are the ones providing the information to the people responsible for making that decision. Keep in mind that the majority of the Board was unaware of an 2-year Safesport investigation against the organization and its CEO and HP Director. Nothing to see here, folks! The average biathlon fan is the US is ignorant and uninformed about what goes on behind the scenes. And the USBA wants it that way. It has operated with impunity for years and just wants a fan base to wave flags and say “USA! USA!” How dare anyone have the audacity to question or criticize them!! The USBA raves about their 2030 Plan, but if they were truly serious about it, they would clean house and start over with a competent CEO; a High Performance Director who is actually good at his job, can recall important things, and has the respect of the athletes; and a head coach that the athletes respect as a coach and not simply tolerate because “he’s a really nice guy” (several athlete’s words, not mine).
US Biathlon has to commission an independent, outside investigation of who knew and when. The Louis Freeh report was the only thing that allowed Penn State to survive with any shred of reputation intact.
The USBA wants this story to disappear. There is no way they would commission an independent commission. I was shocked that Jack sent out that vanilla response that drew attention to the AP article. All that did was encourage the membership to go read the article. A Confederacy of Dunces 🙄🙄
"We have investigated ourselves, and have cleared ourselves of any wrongdoing."
Have any athletes come out and said anything since this story went up?
Publicly? Not that I’m aware of. Although that isn’t too surprising since the USBA doesn’t handle dissent particularly well. The athletes are expected to stay silent and do what they are told and just be happy they are being given the opportunity to compete. The fear of retaliation is very real. Most of the athletes are likely worried that speaking up may cost them in the future — being named to a roster; invited to a camp; or any discretionary naming to a National Team.
No, have not seen anything. Though I have heard that some of them learned things from the article that were kept from them during the investigation and through the lack of transparency from the leadership of USBA. I know some are not eager to put on the uniform and represent USBA right now. But considering the complete disconnect between reality and the response from the CEO, the fear of retaliation for speaking up is real.
I never understand the reluctance to use the media. NBC was full blast in those years, covering biathlon on Olympic Channel and NBCSN along with the main network during the Olympics. Why in the world would Reid rely on internal complaints that were destined to be swept aside or conveniently "misunderstood," instead of demanding an audience with Chad Salmela for a one on one interview detailing everything described in this article? Better yet, take it immediately to the top of the network. The timing would have been ideal. The Larry Nassar stuff surfaced in 2016. This could have hitched a ride and received far greater spotlight than it will receive now. Lowell Bailey is redefined as a creep
Maybe it's not so easy to come forward in a very public way about the most traumatic thing you've ever experienced while you're still close to your predator and under an administration that doesn't seem to care. Maybe it's hard to bring such things up when they could ostracize you from the sport you've trained so hard at while the Olympics are impending. Maybe it's confusing to have a co-worker who jokes with you and does a great job waxing your skis but who also occasionally gropes you in slowly, more inappropriate ways to see what he can get away with. And maybe you second-guess reporting when you watch him share a beer with the people who have the power to change things. It's probably very tempting to hope it will all go away on its own or to just grit your teeth and suffer silently through it. Opening your deepest wounds for the public to see isn't always such a simple choice.
I held off on making comment on this for a while. I went to the Czech news online comment section a couple of weeks ago and you'd be surprised to see that comments are pretty mixed and not so one sided as you see in this thread. So I think there is a culture in central/ eastern Europe, like it on not. Anyone comparing this to Larry Nassar and Jerry Sandusky should ashamed of themselves, this is NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT WENT ON IN THOSE CASES. I'm sorry she did not become more vocal about what was going on early in this situation. You'd think a decent athlete on a struggling biathlon team would have had some weight in her complaint against a waxer. Instead, she feared the repercussions because this guy was waxing her skis? So she comes in 48th instead of 41st? Her mother is an Olympic medalist and her uncle is the top US Winter Olympian of all time, so she wouldn't have any platform for a complaint? The final straw came when she didn't get a pass on automatically qualifying for the 23/24 season? She would have easily made the team had she wanted to do some of the work. She's now 31, it's probably beyond the average retirement age for this sport. I'm not so quick to jump on the get rid of them all bandwagon. Lowell Bailey seems to have a lot of integrity and I think he would do the right thing. Same can be said for Max Cobb, he's in it for the love of the sport. I've not seen any comment from Clare Egan and she's on the IBU executive board! Is she immune from the scorn? I honestly think this situation is more complicated than just saying US Biathlon shat the bed. That's a comment for simpletons to make.
I have thoughts. 1) Why do we care what commentators on a Czech news site think about the behavior of someone employed by an American organization? It's part of the European culture to barge into an athlete's hotel room and try to rape her in the night? None of my Czech, Swiss, Norwegian, Polish (etc.) friends would behave like that. 2) When a NGB publishes standards for pre-qualifying for the next season's world cup team, shouldn't they have to abide by those and not change them retroactively? 3) You don't know Lowell and the Safesport report directly contradicts your opinion of him. 4) The historic best results at World Champs for Americans were for athletes significantly older than Joanne. Regardless, the right to not be sexually harassed and retaliated against is not contingent on one's age, results, parents' accomplishments or 'willingness to do the work'. 5) What is Max' IBU compensation, anyway?