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Olympic 4x100m free relay gold medalist Melanie Schlanger has become the first member of the London 2012 squad to call for head coach Leigh Nugent to fall on his sword. In a week that delivered two damning reports that revealed the extent of bad behaviour, members of the men’s 4x100m free relay team at the heart of the crisis of culture attended a press conference to make a public confession. Now the focus is shifting to dry land. Schlanger tells Wayne Smith at The Australian, that she believed Nugent had changed his story several times when it came to when knew that some of the relay boys had taken Stilnox, a prescription sleeping pill often used by athletes trying to cope with jet lag but banned by the Australian Olympic Committee.
“I personally don’t trust him to be our head coach,” said Schlanger. “His story changes every day. How can he stand up in front of the team and tell us what we can and can’t do? The situation has become far too volatile for him to remain as head coach. If he was a football coach in any code, his job would have been taken away already. The fact that we are an Olympic sport shouldn’t make us any different.”
(Video from when they were happy in London)
