A Gymnastics Australia Hall of Fame coach who said she would "lock [teenage athletes] in their room and feed them peas and carrots under the door" has been sanctioned but not stood down from the sport.
The National Sports Tribunal found Peggy Liddick, Australian women's artistic team boss from 1997 to 2016, guilty of harassing two-time Olympian Georgia Bonora.
Liddick, described by several former gymnasts as "the most powerful person in the sport of gymnastics", was given a suspended four-month ban and made to apologise.
"Dear Georgia," she wrote to Bonora this week.
"Pursuant to Order 5 of the National Sports Tribunal Determination dated 18 January 2022, as directed by the Tribunal, I apologise to you and acknowledge that I engaged in unacceptable coaching behaviours, in particular the use of negative language which was belittling, offensive and humiliating and cause great upset to you. Kind regards Peggy Liddick."
Liddick stopped leading national teams five years ago, after which she remained a "technical member" and Life Member of Gymnastics Australia (she was personal coach to elite national team members from 2017 to 2020), an influential Victorian-based coach, and an internationally recognised judge.
Interim restrictions had been placed on Liddick while she was under investigation.
The ABC tried to contact the American-born coach through her suburban Melbourne club Athleta, but she did not respond.
The case against Peggy Liddick
Bonora, 31, represented Australia in two Olympic Games (2008 and 2012), four world championships (2006, 2007, 2009, 2010) and one Commonwealth Games (2010).
In retirement she became a coach in Melbourne, where Liddick was also training athletes.
"I'd recently been re-exposed to her coaching," Bonora said.
"It all sort of came back to the forefront of my mind, what exactly gymnastics was like with her as the leader of the country.
"It just baffled me that people like that were still in the sport. I really care about the sport. I'm a coach – and it just upset me."
In September 2020, Bonora made an official report against Liddick to Sport Integrity Australia, accusing her of misconduct, bullying and abuse between 2006 and 2012.
She accused Liddick of "verbal and emotional abuse including but not limited to inappropriate language, shaming, poor coaching practices, ridicule, intimidation, humiliation, threatening behaviour and neglect".
The complaints system Bonora went through arose from the Australian Human Rights Commission's (AHRC) review of gymnastics.
The AHRC found the sport enabled a toxic culture.
Sport Integrity Australia heard Bonora's allegations, while former Australian gymnasts Shona Morgan, Olivia Vivian, Chloe Gilliland and Ashleigh Brennan gave evidence to support their former teammate's claims.
Liddick denied any wrongdoing and called character witnesses to support her long record of coaching.
But the integrity body found the following five allegations "substantiated":
- In 2006 at an Australian Institute of Sport training camp (before the world championships in Denmark), Liddick said to Bonora and other athletes that she would lock them in their room and feed them peas and carrots under the door
- In 2007 at a training session at the world championships in Stuttgart, Liddick harassed Bonora by making an "offensive and belittling" remark about her in her presence. The remark was made in the context of a teammate falling from the beam apparatus during a training session, at which the national coach said: "If I'd wanted someone to fall off the beam, I'd put [Georgia] up there."
- In 2007 at the world championships in Stuttgart, Liddick "bullied and ridiculed" Bonora about the result of the women's artistic gymnastics (WAG) team
- During a training session at the 2012 London Olympics, Liddick yelled and screamed insults at Bonora for making a mistake
- During a team debrief following the 2012 Olympic competition, Liddick said to Bonora and other WAG members they were overweight and this was the reason for their performance
Bonora told ABC Sport it was difficult to make complaints against Liddick's style of management, which was accepted by Gymnastics Australia for two decades.
"I was pretty anxious at the beginning of the process because I didn't know how much help I would get, and everyone was very scared and nervous," she said.
"But thankfully I had some teammates come in and help.
"It was a long ordeal. I followed it step by step and did it according to what the process was set out to be. To be honest, it was really easy to tell the truth."
She said her recollections of international competitions were "clear and strong".
"At the time it was terrifying," she said.
"It was absolutely terrible. I struggle to have words to explain what it was like, but it was just the way it was. I didn't know any better. What I could think in my head was, 'This is what I have to do to push through to reach my goals in my sport.' This is what it is.
"I didn't know there was any other options because there wasn't any other options."
Not all coaches shared Liddick's approach.
"My personal coach really helped us a lot in trying to protect us," Bonora said.
Gilliland, a gold medallist at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, praised Bonora for going to SIA.
"Hats off to her," she said.
"To be able to stand up for herself and the community of gymnasts who were subject to that behaviour and abuse, I commend her. And I think she's incredibly brave and a strong woman for doing it.
"She was a gymnast and I think only people that were subject to the way Peggy used to make us feel would really understand how big of a thing it was to stand up to her and put a complaint in against her."
Gilliland said the complaints process was confronting.
"It's very unnerving," she said.
"Like anyone that's had to stand up to someone that they have felt belittled by – you lose a lot of sleep over it. It set off a lot of anxiety for me and it affects you more than you think it would."
Following the Sport Integrity Australia hearing, Gymnastics Australia proposed banning Liddick as a technical member for six months, with half that time suspended pending completion of a "three-month reintegration period."
Liddick was issued a breach notice, which she appealed to another statutory body, the National Sports Tribunal, in August 2021.
Bonora was surprised to hear she would have to give evidence again.
"I wasn't anticipating that it would or could go further than Sport Integrity [Australia]," she said.
"And the fact that it did made the process a little more challenging. But I was pretty determined to see it through because I really believed that what I was doing was the right thing to do."
Doing it all again: Liddick fights back
The National Sports Tribunal, established in 2019, heard Liddick's application as a disciplinary dispute.
The former coach tried to argue through her lawyers that the hearing was "statute-barred" under the Victorian Limitation of Actions Act, 1958, which "prohibits any action founded on contract being brought against a person after the expiration of six years".
The tribunal rejected this application because it was acting under Commonwealth law; the Essendon Football Club supplement case (ASADA v 34 Players & Another) was used as a legal comparison.
The tribunal heard evidence from all witnesses.
Bonora was cross-examined by Liddick's counsel.
"It was pretty traumatic to be honest," Bonora told ABC Sport.
"It was a very emotional experience and I wanted to get through it and be as effective as I could, but the cross-examining was … I haven't experienced anything like that before, and it was like [something out of] a movie."
During the tribunal hearing, it was revealed:
- Bonora was only 16 when she heard Liddick say at the AIS: "Make sure you eat well in the dining hall" and "I'll lock you in your room and feed you peas and carrots under the door" if the athletes ate more food than she thought they needed
- Bonora was made to feel self-conscious about her weight and would often hear "targeted comments" about weight and physical appearance
- The AIS nutritionist would perform skin-fold testing at training camps
- Bonora said she sometimes saw Liddick staring at team members in the dining hall as if she were "watching food intake very closely"
- At one AIS training camp, on Liddick's instructions, the team was restricted to eating dinner from the salad bar area
- On some overseas trips, the WAG teammates did not eat meals in a public area, rather they were served from Liddick's hotel room under her supervision
- Bonora recalled that once, while overseas, the team was served noodle soup from Liddick's room and team members who were achieving the coach's weight target were given more noodles in their soup than the team members who were not
- The focus on weight made Bonora "hyper-vigilant" about who was watching her when she ate
- A team member felt the power structure between athletes and Liddick meant that she couldn't speak up about negative comments because Liddick and other coaches were in charge of team selection for world championships and Olympic Games
- Liddick was reluctant to concede that she held a position of power, and she refused to concede there was a culture in gymnastics of striving to achieve a certain body shape or appearance
- In May 2021, Gymnastics Victoria terminated Liddick's appointment as a judge in the Victorian team at the Australian championships due to her being under investigation
- The National Sports Tribunal found Bonora a "credible witness"
- The tribunal panel said Liddick was a "less than an impressive witness"
Nevertheless, the tribunal dismissed three of the five allegations substantiated by Sport Integrity Australia.
Two of the allegations (the "peas and carrots under the door" threat and blaming athletes' weight for the disappointing London 2012 results) were upheld.
The coach was given a four-month ban, which was suspended for a period of two years, to be served under probation.
"I would've liked to have seen a more significant sentence from this," Bonora said.
The former athlete said the governing body was relatively supportive.
"Gymnastics Australia have spoken to me quite a bit throughout the process and they've been checking in on me, I guess making sure I'm OK," she said.
"I have to have faith that they will make good decisions when it comes to this situation, because the Gymnastics Australia when I was a gymnast – it is different to the Gymnastics Australia now. There's completely different people in there, so I'm hoping that they will look at everything and make the right decisions.
"Sometimes I worry that my experience in the sport maybe shaped me in a certain way that wasn't good. I've tried to do as much as I can to try and give me the best perspective on things.
"I've done a degree in psychology, I've spent time developing myself to make sure that I don't forget the position I'm in and how powerful the position of being a coach is for young kids."
Gilliland, who has also become a high-performance coach, said: "It's not the sport's fault that these people have had such an immense influence on the culture and the way athletes have been brought up in the past."
"I think it's so incredibly important that we learn from those mistakes and we move forward and create a much better future for not only our elite athletes but our national level athletes and any young gymnast that comes through the door," she added.
"I can't control what GA [Gymnastics Australia] does. I don't know what they're thinking to be honest. I guess only time will tell. Actions always speak louder than words. You can say sorry a million times but whether or not something is done about the situation is another thing."
Sports Integrity Australia chief executive David Sharpe said he accepted the National Sports Tribunal's finding and sanction against Liddick.
"It is critical that these stories are told, and poor conduct called out, in order to protect athletes in future," he said.
"I am confident both parties were afforded procedural fairness through this matter."
Gymnastics Australia said it recognised the "independent and robust" process that was undertaken by the National Sports Tribunal.
"Gymnastics Australia acknowledges the bravery of the athletes who shared their experience of unacceptable behaviour," the sports body told ABC Sport.
"The NST determination regarding Ms Liddick reiterates that any abuse toward an athlete is unacceptable.
"With the NST determination now finalised, the Gymnastics Australia Board will consider any further actions that may be required or appropriate as provided for in the determination."
Gymnastics Australia chief executive Kitty Chiller recently announced her imminent departure.
Ms Chiller's next job will be deputy chief executive of the National Sports Tribunal, beginning March.
