Word from Commonwealth Games in Delhi is that all is well.
Canadian coach Elizabeth Brubaker says “Things are awesome here!!”.
Despite the furor (“athlete housing not fit for humans”) in advance of the Games, so far as I can determine, only 1 gymnast dropped out of the meet voluntarily – Adam Cox of Scotland.
That’s him on the right, winning a Bronze medal on H Bar at the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. A National hero.
Why would Adam give up a couple of weeks before his 3rd Commonwealth Games?
… coach Tan Jia En was made redundant by Scottish Gymnastics last week from his post as national coach and Adam Cox, a gold medal hope in the high bar, announced he would not be heading to India in protest….
… (Adam) said, “I wasn’t prepared to go without him. Training had been going really well and there was a chance I was going to medal. To me it was out of the blue and I’m really upset not to be going. It had to be Tan, at this stage I would not feel safe going to the Games without him.”
The 23-year-old, who has trained with Tan for 13 years, added, “That is me officially retired now. It is a shame this is how I’m going to finish but I don’t really want anything else to do with the association.”…
Herald Scotland:
… Anglo Scots Daniel Keating (a world and European medallist) and Daniel Purves, members of the Great Britain team at the world championships, which has caused them to be unavailable for Delhi, are reported to have said they have no interest in competing for Scotland in future, if Tan is out of the frame….
… could Scottish Gymnastics have bolloxed this any worse?
… Scottish Gymnastics chief executive Catriona O’Shea then asked him to continue as coach to the Delhi team, offering him £250 per day. …
Coach Tan declined the money. Devastated.
… The other male gymnast in the Scottish squad, Ryan McKee, will now head to the games with his club coach, Marius Gherman….
press release response from Scottish Gymnastics
(Sept. 22nd)
If you’ve an opinion, don’t leave a comment … Email info@scottishgymnastics.org, instead. Tell Catriona O’Shea what you think of the decision.
I did.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 