Did team boss ignore calls for help?: Ex-biathlete speaks about sexual harassment

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Last summer, Joanne Reid (31) decided to put away her biathlon rifle forever. The decisive factor was her demotion within the American team; she was removed from the national team. But other reasons that have nothing to do with sports could also have led to this.

As the news agency “AP” reports, citing an investigation conducted by SafeSport, the three-time American champion was sexually harassed for years. For six years, her former trainer Petr Garabik (54) repeatedly groped her, gave her unwanted hugs and made inappropriate sexual comments.

The attacks culminated in an incident in March 2017, when the Czech appeared drunk outside her hotel room. He gained access to the room, pushed her down and tried to kiss her. Teammate and roommate Deedra Irwin (31) intervened. As she says, this wasn’t the only time she had to intervene.

Team boss ignored calls for help

In 2020, Reid, who completed 144 races in the World Championship, contacted team boss Lowell Bailey to report the incidents. His response was simply that Europeans cannot be taught rules about sexual harassment. Now he tells AP: “That is not true. They probably misinterpreted that.”

The American association subsequently suspended Garabik from his position in November 2021 and suspended him for one year. The 54-year-old is on probation until the end of 2024.

Last November, Reid suggested on Instagram that there must have been more going on behind the scenes than the relegation in the team. She wrote, in part, “Abuse and harassment are, at their core, manipulations of power imbalances, whether physical, emotional, organizational, cultural, or otherwise.” (ch)

Source : Blick