No, he's not worried. André Cats sits relaxed opposite the Dutch sports press on Tuesday in a blue meeting room at Papendal called 'Swimming Pool'. The Olympic Games in Paris will start in a hundred days and the Dutch team, which wants to finish in the top 10 of the medal rankings, “is in good shape,” says the director of top sport of sports umbrella organization NOC-NSF.
But recent reports paint a different picture. A week and a half ago, the KNZB swimming association announced after months of investigation that coach Mark Faber could stay on after he was accused of inappropriate behavior by swimmers and coaches. The study showed a “mixed picture regarding manners, […] that may have been experienced as undesirable', but not 'demonstrably transgressive behaviour'.
Revealed the same day Fidelity that some of the athletes who train at Papendal on behalf of the Athletics Union feel unsafe after a case of sexual misconduct. A male athlete allegedly had sex with a female colleague and secretly filmed it. After a temporary absence, the man is training again with the other Olympic athletes at Papendal, while the woman in question trains separately. This would have led to dissatisfaction and feelings of insecurity among other athletes, a view that was endorsed a few days later in a letter from the athletes' committee of the same association.
'Explosion on Papendal'
That seems far from “being optimally prepared at the start in Paris”, as Cats formulates one of his most important goals for the Olympic Games. As soon as Tuesday's revelations of inappropriate behavior come up, his attitude changes. When a journalist tells him that there was “an explosion on Papendal, the fragments of which have still not been cleared away,” he sits up, looks at his notes and says he “doesn't recognize” that image.
The director of top sports at NOC-NSF, which is the main funder of top sports programs and will soon be responsible in Paris for all athletes who compete for 'TeamNL', avoids other questions about the issue.
“I don't want to comment on individual cases,” he says several times. Yes, there is contact with the Athletics Union about the matter, Cats indicates, “but we are in contact about everything.” He cannot judge whether it will disrupt the preparation for the Games. “And with that I would like to close the subject.”
It is clear that the sports association is struggling with tackling these sensitive issues. The position of NOC-NSF is that it is primarily up to the sports associations themselves to resolve such matters. The sports association only intervenes if an association does not do this sufficiently. The question is where that limit lies. In previous affairs with, among others, the gymnastics association and the triathlon association, NOC-NSF had to admit afterwards that action had not been taken on time and insufficiently.
For the time being, the limit for intervention has not yet been reached at the Athletics Union, in the eyes of NOC-NSF. In the meantime, the sports association does not want to act as spokesperson for the association, especially not in a case of inappropriate behavior.
Cats only wants to say something in general terms on Tuesday about transgressive behavior in top sport. “It is clear that I feel responsible in a general sense for a safe top sports climate. I take that very seriously.”
Prize money
Then follows a question about the prize money awarded by the international athletics association World Athletics at the Games. Cats relaxes. When a journalist later tells him that data agency Gracenote predicts that the Netherlands will win eighteen gold medals at the Games, he laughs. “Staring at rankings doesn't help anyone. But our starting position is good.”
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