My Why

Hannah Whelan OLY, Assistant Head Coach at Warrington Gymnastics Club and retired Team GB gymnast, writes about her reasons for joining the group legal action against British Gymnastics and her personal coaching journey.

All of us who have joined in the group legal action against British Gymnastics have a common goal: we want to secure an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and ensure real cultural change happens. But I have some more personal reasons, too. 

Yes, I have been hurt by the wrongdoings of the people and governing body who were meant to support me, but my passion for gymnastics has never left me. As most in the gymnastics world are aware, I am still heavily involved in the sport, working full-time with a range of gymnasts from 8-19 years, at varying ability levels.

When I first started coaching, I was determined to enable the younger generations to experience all the good that this sport has to offer, whilst knowing I did not want to coach the way I had been coached.

However, when I began my coaching journey, it was in similar surroundings to my career as an athlete. Believing I had the best intentions, I started on a naïve and negative, albeit passionate path - without knowing there was any other way. I was young and inexperienced. 

It wasn’t long before I left that toxic environment. Through educating myself and coming to terms with my own demons, I quickly realised that there was in fact another way. This was down to surrounding myself with good people, who looked for research and scientifically-based methods.

I was fortunate enough to work alongside those who challenged the norm, wanted to better themselves and knew there was a healthier, more successful and more supportive way to coach.

I started to wonder what my gymnastics career could have been like had I been coached with this more positive approach. And how different a coach I would be now, had I stayed on my original path.

It’s been incredibly hard to see the difficulties coaches are facing now (myself included) that add to the already immense pressure and responsibility that comes with working with children.

Although I am still at the start of what I hope to be a long coaching journey, I understand. I understand the frustration, the confusion. The concern for the gymnasts, and the feeling of not truly knowing how to be your best for them- questioning what you once thought was the norm and reflecting on your own coaching journeys.

This is why I want to stand up for and support the positive and forward-thinking coaches. I want to fight for them too.

I have said before that BG have failed in their duty of care. And when I said this, I also meant that they have failed in their duty to coaches. BG have failed to support and educate coaches, and the consequences have been huge, as we have all seen.

Gymnastics should always be gymnast focused, but these terrible stories and experiences we have heard over the past 8 months stem from a lack of education about how to coach “children”. Children being the operative word, not athletes or gymnasts.  

The survival of the damaging coaching culture doesn’t primarily come from bad people, but from the mistakes of coaches not being stopped in their tracks and corrected at the outset. It stems from the gymnastics community not being educated on the harm that can be caused from certain coaching techniques.

It’s coaches not having the right mentors, or any mentors, or not having a safe, welcoming environment to implement new techniques and ideas when they do learn about them.

I am a level 4 WAG Coach, but have learnt more about coaching and working with children during our club driven external CPD, than on any course provided by BG.  

We are all human, and we all have the ability to reflect on and learn from our mistakes, if we continue to want to learn.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is a BIG difference between physical/ emotional abuse, and a young coach who lacks knowledge on the impact of some bad word choices. But there are so many good, passionate coaches out there who may have made mistakes in the past, but have now reflected on that and still want to learn and better themselves.

We should not and will not give up on good coaches and good people who haven’t had access to education or knowledge, and the opportunity to learn a safer way. 

This is what makes me so passionate about driving change. We as coaches need more guidance. We cannot be expected to wear all of these different hats (technician, S&C coach, psychologist, teacher, etc) and cope with the ever-changing environment and challenges we face when working with children, without a proper support structure and educational system. 

I know these difficult conversations, reflections, and the pain of the last 8 months for everyone in this beautiful sport will not have been for nothing.

Change is coming, and I’m proud to stand alongside many other hard-working, empathic and passionate coaches who will help us get there, in order for the gymnasts to enjoy and thrive in this wonderful sport.

This is my why.