SB wrote:
Let me suggest another angle on this story entirely:
In making her move back to Canada, GDS may be leaving one ethical grey area behind only to encounter another.
Trent Stellingwerf was a prominent member of the integrated support team at the University of Guelph under disgraced and lifetime-banned coach Dave Scott Thomas. This group has been very credibly accused of athlete abuse by numerous female alums. In fact, Stellingwerf, as a young nutrition scientist more than a decade ago, owed much to Dave Scott Thomas for his entre into the upper tiers of athletics IST (mere technical competence of not nearly enough to make it into this world). To date, he has said nothing at all about his years working closely with DST, or his role within the Guelph IST. He's not legally required to, of course, but ethics are not about meeting legal requirements; they are about doing the right thing and being seen to have done so.
GDS is arguably the most principled, articulate, and politically conscientious athlete in global athletics. It's not at all surprising that she's been virtually alone in taking such a professionally and athletically costly stand against the ethical parsing going on at Bowerman around the Houlihan situation. As someone said above, she's the antithesis of the "happy robot" so many of her colleagues are happy to appear as.
I wonder if GDS will require the same ethical clarity of Stellingwerf as she has of Schumacher and BTC. The aforementioned Guelph alums are, as we speak, demanding that their alma mater conduct a full, proper, and independent investigation of the abuse they claimed to have suffered at the hands of DST and his IST, and that was systematically ignored by those responsible for protecting them. Canadian athletics being a much smaller world, doing so would by more difficult than taking a stand against Schumacher and Bowerman. But if anyone has it in her, it would be GDS.
The Toronto track community is very tight; Staffords are family friends with the athlete worst affected by Scott Thomas situation as I think both her dad and step mom were part of that athletes club for a bit. GDS and them were both at UTTC too after the athlete left post Speed River. The Stellingwerff's are also working with two other athletes who left Speed River with issues and injuries/not on good terms with Dave.
Astute observation, but I'd be stunned if that hadn't been discussed between them all, presumably to Stafford's satisfaction.
Sidenote, imagine if Trackie forums were still up during this week?