What does sporting success look like? At times it seems so alluringly simple to answer that – surely it has to be crossing the line first, scoring most, standing on the top step of the podium. At other times, such a view seems naive, misleading, verging on delusional. Reading the Whyte Review is one of those times. Anna Whyte’s chilling report on gymnastics forces us to question the purpose of elite sport and ask whether there is space for values and ethical standards in high performance environments. It challenges all of us involved in sport in some way to take responsibility for the path that led to this point. There are phrases within the report that resonate sinisterly with other parts of the sporting world too.
Whyte revealed how “success” for a significant part of the elite gymnastics community for more than a decade involved ongoing, systematic human suffering through widespread physical, emotional and mental abuse, frequently affecting children under the age of 12, a majority of whom were female. It’s easy to point fingers at individuals but the scale of this requires us to think more broadly. How could the pursuit of a shiny piece of metal regularly include long-term human damage that can last a lifetime? What sort of environments, what kind of culture and what types of leaders uphold a value system where an inanimate object is worth harming a child?
