Olivia Podmore investigation: ‘We could lose someone’, doctor warns High Performance Sport

Olivia Podmore died in 2021, the day after the end of the Tokyo Olympics, for which she was not selected.
Photograph: photography sport

This story discusses mental health and suicide. A list of helplines is available at the bottom of the page.

At the inquest into the death of elite cyclist Olivia Podmore, the head of High Performance Sport New Zealand was warned in 2018 of concerns that if the environment at Cycling New Zealand was not improved it would “cause an athlete to kill herself”.

The warning came from a senior doctor who works closely with athletes in the Cycling NZ high performance programme.

The doctor told the Coroner’s Court in Hamilton on Friday that he met former HPSNZ boss Michael Scott in June 2018 as the government body was preparing to launch an independent investigation into Cycling NZ’s high performance programme.

The investigation was launched following allegations of bullying, intimidation and inappropriate coach-athlete relationships that emerged in the media following the sudden departure of a member of the coaching staff.

The allegations stemmed from a 2016 incident at a training camp in Bordeaux, just weeks before the Rio Olympics, when Podmore accidentally revealed an affair between a coach and an athlete. The court heard evidence this week that Podmore was subjected to “relentless bullying” following the incident.

The investigation is nearing the end of its first week.
Photograph: Pool / RNZ, Cole Eastham-Farrelly

The doctor, whose name has been temporarily suppressed, described Podmore’s experiences during this period as “psychological abuse” on Friday.

The doctor, who left the Cycling NZ scene in 2017 because he began to feel “insecure” himself, said he contacted Scott because he never felt he had a proper, formal exit interview when leaving and was “unable to communicate his concerns”. good enough”.

In his statement to the Coroner’s Court, the paramedic said he told Scott “the athletes were at risk”.

“I told Michael Scott that I thought there were athletes at risk and that if we did not fix the environment in Cycling New Zealand we would have an athlete who could kill himself,” the doctor’s summary of evidence said.

“At the time, because I had left the environment and had a lot of time to think, I thought the whole period following Bordeaux and Rio was much worse than I thought at the time. I thought it was bad, but it wasn’t.” “It wasn’t until I left Cycling NZ that I realized how bad the situation really was.”

The medical examiner said his opinion was not based on “any official assessment or the last information I have on these athletes” but rather on a “gut instinct” based on the significant stress the incident had placed on the athletes and staff.

The inquest is being chaired by Coroner Luella Dunn.
Photograph: RNZ/Cole Eastham-Farrelly

On Friday, the doctor told the inquest that he told Scott that if leaders did not act in accordance with the findings of the investigation (which was still being launched at that point), “we could lose someone.”

“At that stage we were talking about athletes but it could also have been staff,” he added.

The doctor said he was extremely sensitive to Scott’s concerns and immediately put him in touch with Mike Heron, who was assigned to conduct the independent investigation.

The health practitioner said he spoke to Heron twice for the 2018 review and also informed the 2021 independent inquiry following Podmore’s death in August that year.

“I met with Michael Heron three times,” he said.

“When I met with him in 2021, he said, ‘You raised many of these concerns in our first interview.’”

“Major breach” in security

The doctor at the Bordeaux camp who triggered the fault line in the program said the incident had a clear impact on Podmore’s Rio Olympic campaign.

He told the court he felt much of the “panic and emotion” Podmore displayed at the Games was a result of what he had experienced in preparation.

“It felt incredibly important to me that she felt quite insecure about what had happened, and I was really concerned that someone so young would be thrown into the middle of something that she really had no idea about right before her first Olympic Games.

“I think the flow-on effect (in Rio) can largely be attributed to how confusing and how traumatic it seems for him to find his place in the team and how he navigates that.”

The doctor said he believed at this point the coach’s behavioral issues in both Bordeaux and Rio were so serious that Cycling NZ would have no choice but to take action when the team returned from the Games.

“I must admit that I assured Olivia that things would be different after Rio, because I felt that this was a major breach of security,” he said.

Former High Performance Sport NZ CEO Michael Scott
Photograph: RNZ / Dan Cook

The doctor said he attended the Rio briefing and was interviewed by HPSNZ chief executive Eddie Kohlhase, along with another senior health expert, and left “nothing unsaid”.

The doctor said he had no contact with Podmore in a clinical setting before his death after leaving the cycling program in 2017, but remained in contact with the talented young cyclist.

While the doctor had no direct knowledge of the challenges Podmore faced ahead of the Tokyo Games, he said the impact of not being selected for the Tokyo Games would be “devastating” on Podmore.

“It’s hard, especially after going through a really difficult Rio experience, to not be able to show up and fix things. It’s hard not to step out of your circumstances,” he said.

The doctor told the court he had been encouraged by changing attitudes towards athletes’ welfare during his time in the system.

He highlighted a recent workshop he attended with aspiring coaches and described the process as “healing.”

“It seemed great to me that we were actually sitting there talking about how to keep athletes safe.”

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