Questions and answers for Cycling NZ
Olivia Podmore’s family know they may never get all the answers they need.
They accept it’s unlikely they will ever truly come to understand the complex set of circumstances that led to the elite cyclist’s suspected suicide in August last year – a tragedy her mother Nienke Podmore says she never saw coming. The ‘whys?’ will likely forever linger.
But soon, they hope, they will at least get some answers to the searching questions the tragic event has posed of the country’s high performance system.
Nine months on from the Rio Olympian’s death, which followed a concerning social media post in which she accused Cycling NZ and High Performance Sport NZ bosses of a ‘‘cover up’’, the findings of an independent inquiry into the two organisations is set to be released.
Today, Sport NZ boss Raelene Castle, Cycling NZ chairman Phil
Holden, along with two members of the inquiry panel – Mike Heron QC and Sarah Leberman, will meet with Podmore’s family in Christchurch to outline the findings of the review.
At the same time, current Cycling NZ athletes will be briefed by the organisation’s interim chief executive, Monica Robbers, at a meeting in Cambridge. It is expected the findings will be released to the public on Monday.
While Podmore’s death was the catalyst for the inquiry, given a coronial investigation is also underway the review findings are not expected to rake over the details of the young athlete’s time in the Cycling NZ programme. Instead, it will focus on the broader athlete welfare issues to emerge in the shocking testimony from athletes, parents and coaches that flowed in the days following Podmore’s death.
Many of the claims that surfaced – a lack of accountability and effective leadership in the programme, opaque selection methods and a fear of reprisal for speaking up – were traversed in Heron’s 2018 investigation into Cycling NZ following allegations of bullying, intimidation and a toxic culture.
Central to that investigation was the treatment of Podmore, who Heron found was pressured to ‘‘give a false account’’ to protect a coach and another athlete who were allegedly involved in an intimate relationship. In his 2018 review findings, Heron described the incident as a ‘‘distressing and sinister example of bullying’’.
That we are back here again four years on with another major inquiry into the sport has forced a wider examination of the system and High Performance Sport NZ’s engagement with sporting bodies.
However, the conduct and decision-making of individuals within the Cycling NZ programme is still expected to come under the spotlight. Stuff understands four people have come under heavy criticism in the review. It is believed all four no longer work at the organisation.