Rio de Janeiro: The Brazilian Olympic Committee will exclude Australian swimming coach Scott Volkers  from Brazil’s team at the Rio Olympics in August at the request of Australia, where he faced child sexual abuse charges a decade ago, a committee official said yesterday.
“Volkers will not be accredited,” committee spokesman Daniel Varsano said. The Australian Olympic Committee last week asked Brazilian Olympic Committee President Carlos Nuzman to exclude Scott, who now coaches Brazilian swimmers, due to allegations that he sexually abused young Australian swimmers in the 1980s and 1990s. Volkers, 57, was arrested in Australia in 2002 on charges of indecent behaviour with a minor. The charges were dropped for lack of evidence but he was banned from working with children under age 16. He has denied the allegations against him.
Volkers moved to Brazil in 2011 and became the swimming coach at the Minas Tennis Club in Belo Horizonte, which has produced some of Brazil’s best swimmers. Among those he has coached is Brazil’s top swimmer and only Olympic gold medallist in swimming, Cesar Cielo, who won the 50-metre freestyle gold medal in Beijing in 2008 and bronze in London in 2012.
Volkers gained fame for coaching two of Australia’s top swimmers, Samantha Riley and Susie O’Neill.
A spokesman for the Minas Tennis Club said Volkers had been advised by his lawyers not to comment on his exclusion from the Brazilian swimming team.
Meanwhile, Australia’s Olympic chief welcomed Volkers ban from the Games in Rio. John Coates, president of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC), wrote to his Brazilian counterpart last month asking him to consider the allegations against Volkers.
Coates said he had not received official confirmation from Brazil, but added that an AOC staff member was advised by the Wall Street Journal newspaper of Volkers’ exclusion. “It does appear that (Rio 2016 president) Carlos Nuzman...has considered the letter and the evidence from the Royal Commission that I shared with him and they’ve taken that decision,” Coates told reporters in Sydney. “If that’s the case, then I’m pleased.”