Swimming Australia to launch investigation following Madeline Groves' claims of misogyny
Swimming Australia is set to investigate claims of misogyny made by Olympic silver medallist Madeline Groves with an independent panel.
The sport was rocked during the week when Groves withdrew from the Australian Olympic swimming trials and blasted the exploitation of female athletes on social media.
Swimming Australia CEO Alex Baumann said he hoped the investigation would uncover whether the sport had institutional problems.
"Obviously with some of the communications, some of the tweets, I think we have to investigate some of those issues," he told reporters on Saturday afternoon.
Baumann added that Swimming Australia had attempted to contact Groves since her withdrawal, but the 26-year-old did not respond.
Swimming Australia has been unable to get in contact with Madeline Groves after her withdrawal. Joe Armao
The independent panel will be led by Swimming Australia director Tracy Stockwell, who denied that the sport itself had a problem with women.
"We've made lots of improvements, but we need to do a little bit more looking into this to see what the issues are, are there issues, and what do we do moving forward to protect our athletes?" she said.
"When we have any accusations of misbehaviour or inappropriate behaviour, we take that very seriously.
"In light of the fact that we don't have her coming forward, we need to look at our complaints process as well to see is there some reason why she's not coming forward and get to the bottom of it.
"What we're trying to be is as open and transparent as possible."
