Cathal Dennehy: Weighing up the fine line between healthy training and unhealthy habits
2012 Olympic gold medallist Ruta Meilutyte was one of 12 swimmers to say they experienced bullying, a toxic training environment, and controlling food culture while training under coach Jon Rudd at Plymouth Leander Club in England. Rudd spent eight years as national performance director for Swim Ireland. Pic: FERENC ISZA/AFP via Getty Images
The line is a hazy one, and it’s fiendishly difficult to locate. In a way, it’s like those optical illusions where two people look at the same image, with one seeing a rabbit and the other a duck; or that dress that many of us thought was blue and black while others only saw white and gold.
In sport, this is how it is with what’s deemed acceptable in coaching. One person’s hard taskmaster is another’s bully. One person’s tough love is another’s abuse. The landscape is ever shifting, and what was acceptable in one era could end a career in another. Which brings us to an issue the sporting world hasn’t fully figured out how to discuss: weight.
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