by Irvin Muchnick

Below are the links to our reports of recent days on disgraced swimming coach Alex Pussieldi’s announced tour of clinics in Brazil. These have been published without requested responses from USA Swimming to key questions, on which I’m continuing to follow up. The questions are:

• Pussieldi is running an upcoming series of clinics in Brazil, purportedly sponsored by Speedo, https://www.instagram.com/p/DCzSNq0xGNc/?img_index=1. This fact pattern calls to mind the controversy surrounding the honorific of the annual Paul Bergen Junior Invitationals meet, which ran for more than a decade in Tualatin Hills, Oregon, and was sponsored by Nike, prior to 2013, when USA Swimming intervened due to Bergen’s notoriety as a sex offender and brought about the removal of Bergen’s name. Does USA Swimming contemplate a parallel intervention with respect to Speedo’s sponsorship of Pussieldi?
• Discovery in civil litigation has exposed the existence of a USA Swimming “flagged” list (in addition to the publicized banned list). Is Pussieldi on the flagged list?

Related questions can be asked of Confederação Brasileira de Desportos Aquáticos (CBDA), the governing body of aquatic sports in Brazil, and Confederación Sudamericana de Natación (CONSANAT), the counterpart for all of South America. Pussieldi says he’s the “communications coordinator” of CONSANAT.

Alex Pussieldi — Swimming Coach Driven out of Florida after Allegations of Trafficking and Sexual Abuse — Announces a Tour of Clinics in Brazil, Sponsored by Speedo, https://concussioninc.net/?p=15974

Speedo Disavows Sponsorship of Alex Pussieldi’s Brazilian Swimming Clinics, Says Endorsement Made ‘Without Authorization’, https://concussioninc.net/?p=15990

The full Alex Pussieldi story is told in Chapter 9, “Sex, Lies, and Alex Pussieldi,” of the new book UNDERWATER: The Greed-Soaked Tale of Sexual Abuse in USA Swimming and Around the Globe.