by Irvin Muchnick
Virtually on the eve of the opening of the Winter Olympics, Speed Skating Canada has launched an investigation of national team head coach Michael Crowe — who had assumed that position in 2015 after being fired by US Speedskating — and placed him on leave.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Devin Heroux broke the story here: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/speedskating/michael-crowe-speed-skating-canada-investigation-1.4489632.
The speedskating scandal follows the sexual abuse narratives at USA Swimming and USA Gymnastics. Though it is not yet clear exactly what precipitated the sidelining of Crowe, Concussion Inc. covered the allegations of his past misconduct at the time he was hired in Canada.
This site also is proud to have been a platform of sport-wide reports of abuse in speedskating — from the campaign to get legendary skater and coach Andy Gabel kicked out of the Hall of Fame to our piece about 1960s skater Vickie Swanson’s alleged abuse at the hands of her uncle and coach Richard Howard Hunt.
Speedskating whistleblower Eva Rodansky wrote a guest column for us and was a source for numerous articles. Rodansky also submitted testimony to now-retired Congressman George Miller during his 2013-14 probe of abuse issues in Olympic sports programs.
As developments with the Crowe story at CBC unfold, below are our assembled, and I hope close to comprehensive, background links.