Bruce Brockhoff has run the gamut of emotions this week – happy, relieved, angry, worried, elated and apologetic. His daughter Belle is in Sochi competing for Australia in boarder cross at the Winter Olympics.
With her eighth place Belle ranked higher than any other Australian athlete in the discipline. She finished ahead of Torah Bright, who admittedly was never going to be a contender for gold in that race, despite the hyped-up television ads claiming otherwise.
Belle Brockhoff placed higher than the men’s favourite, world champion and opening ceremony flag-bearer Chumpy Pullin, who, in a huge blow to Australia’s medal chances, crashed out early in the quarter-finals.
Bruce Brockhoff wasn’t there to see his daughter compete in her first Olympic Games. He and his wife chose to stay behind on the farm in Victoria, in protest at the treatment of their daughter by Australian sporting bodies.
Just minutes after Belle’s race, Brockhoff released a statement criticising the Olympic Winter Institute (OWI) and the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) for their perceived lack of support for his daughter in the form of scholarships and funding which, he maintained, she was entitled to receive.
The timing could not have been worse, with the men’s boarder cross race scheduled to start less than 24 hours later. The AOC, the media and the public were outraged.
Brockhoff issued an apology and on Friday told Guardian Australia: “I never meant to disrespect [the men’s competitors] Chumpy, Jarryd [Hughes] or Cam [Bolton]. It wasn’t aimed at them. It was a culmination of years of frustration about this. I just knew that straight after Belle’s race was the time to send out that statement.”
The funding pathway for Australian athletes is not what one could call clear-cut. The OWI, AOC, Ski & Snowboard Australia (SSA) and various state bodies are all involved in the allocation of funds.
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| Belle Brockhoff, left, and Torah Bright competing in Sochi. Photograph: Sergey Ilnitsky/EPA |
In the SSA handbook, which lays out the funding and Olympic pathway criteria, there is a clause for discretionary awarding of scholarships “in exceptional circumstances where it is determined that a scholarship will add significant value to an individual athlete’s program and ultimately enhance their performance”.
Brockhoff maintains that his daughter was given clear targets to reach in order to receive support. He says her third place at a World Cup in Austria in December 2012 and her world ranking of ninth in 2012-13 should have ensured an offer of the promised scholarship, and that it was a blow to the snowboarder to find no such support would be forthcoming.
He says “the mental effect of being shunned by the very body that is there to support you can really be detrimental to your performance. We wanted Belle to feel that she was being supported and that she was a part of the team.”
It wasn’t just about the money, although the $10,000 a year Brockhoff says his daughter received over the past four years does pale in comparison to the $1m plus attributed to Pullin’s training regime (figures have not been released to confirm this amount).
Before the Games began Belle Brockhoff and other snowboard competitiors – including Scotty James, Hughes and Bright – banded together under the name Team Outcast, which they were openly using as a hashtag in seemingly benign tweets and Facebook updates.
The four athletes are very close and Bright has said: “Team Outcast is about making sure not just the top ones are taken care of but everyone else coming up too, is taken care of.”
Hughes told one Sydney blogger that “if you’re in #TeamOutcast you know who you are ... and The General is the only one who can make you part of the team”.
Bright has since distanced herself from the group’s name, claiming it has been “hijacked” by aggrieved parents.
AOC president John Coates said “the timing of [Brockhoff’s letter] was “disgraceful” and “very unfair”.
Did it put more pressure on Pullin than was already there? There were also four years of intense preparation, the flag-bearing, the poster-boy TV campaign, the miles of media about his chances and the weight of Australia’s expectations riding on his race.
OWI boss Geoff Lipshut says Belle Brockhoff does not share the same “issues” as her father.
Belle is the only openly gay athlete competing for Australia, a badge she wears with pride. She has been outspoken about Russia’s LGBT laws and is very active on social media. She has endured gay-hate tweets and open hostility as well as support for her stance. Belle vowed to have her say and is doing exactly what her dad brought her up to do – to stand up for herself.
What kind of a father would he be if he didn’t lead by example?
On Thursday night the OWI released a statement announcing that Lipshut would be recommending a move to “an expanded snowboard cross program for the next four years that will include Belle Brockhoff, Jarryd Hughes and Cam Bolton as well as Alex Pullin”.
Lipshut said: “Four years ago the OWI built a program around Alex Pullin. It was tailored for Alex to win a medal at the Sochi Olympics. He missed a medal here in a very unpredictable sport but his performances over the past four years have warranted the support the OWI has given him.”
That support may finally be expanded to include the members of Team Outcast, which would indicate a successful campaign outcome – just not the one that the AOC was looking for.
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