Swimming probe ‘not thorough’

11:19am Thursday 5th January 2006

SWIMMING: SWINDON'S former Olympic swimmer Jaime King and Commonwealth gold medallist Karen Pickering have voiced their dissatisfaction with British Swimming's investigation into accusations of bullying against national performance director Bill Sweetenham.

Sweetenham was cleared yesterday after an independent inquiry found allegations made in a newspaper last August unproven, although the governing body still intend to discuss some issues with him.

King, who competed at the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Olympics, told how Sweetenham had "ranted and raved" at her for 10 minutes in front of the rest of the squad at the 2003 World Championships in Barcelona.

She has retired from swimming, insisting Sweetenham was the chief reason for her quitting.

And she questioned the report's thoroughness claiming she had given retired policeman Bill Roberts who headed the probe her information by e-mail rather than in person.

Pickering, who competed under Sweetenham at the 2004 Olympics but retired from competition last year, felt the inquiry's definition of bullying was too narrow.

She said: "I'm not surprised the findings have come up in his favour but it does not take away from the fact there have been many problems leading up to and since the Olympics.

"I understand British Swimming had to look into the allegations of bullying but I think the inquiry should have been much broader than that.'' A number of senior swimmers have since retired and voiced dissatisfaction with Australian coach Sweetenham's methods but British Swimming chief executive David Sparkes believes the critics are in a minority.

He said: "The vast majority of the current swimmers are very supportive of Bill and his methods and his approach and a significant majority of the younger coaches and swimmers are supportive.

"What we have is a very detailed, very thorough investigation.

"Of course there are issues and those issues will be discussed in due course in an appropriate way with Bill Sweetenham as they came up.

"But the core issue is that Bill was accused of being a bully and broadly speaking that has been proved to be wrong."