Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's an honour to be here today as a participant in the standing committee's review on safe sport in Canada, as a recognized survivor by the International Olympic Committee, sharing my lived experience from over two decades on and off the field of play.
My experience is about abuse, trauma, maltreatment, collusion, the use of wilful blindness, the lack of state responsibility, gross liability, brand protection and foreign interference, while validating the importance of civil courts and tribunals in Canadian sport to ensure the independent access to remedies.
In 2005, I would be the first athlete in the world to be gender tested under the IOC's policy, where I would be violated as a predetermination of my participation in cycling. Canada is a signatory to the Olympic Movement, which is found in Canada's sport system. They felt they could, that they had a right, and I deserved it, while they knew nothing.
The IOC is given blind trust under the autonomy of sport under which the IOC operates, guiding and regulating sport federations.
In 2008, realizing Canada had no connection to the leadership of the IOC, I personally convened a conference call with the leadership of Canadian sport and the IOC. Dr. Patrick Schamasch, who was unable to answer the medical questions, as one of the authors, became flustered, admitting that the IOC had never done any research for the published policy. In that moment, Ottawa realized they'd raped me.
Justice and Sport Canada, collectively, did no due diligence upholding the state obligation in respect of protecting and fulfilling human rights as a result of international customary human rights law, before adopting a policy from a foreign entity.
The cover-up would come fast and furious from employees of Sport Canada, the CCES, Cycling Canada, COC members, CEOs of the UCI, and even a cease and desist order from WADA's CEO John Fahey. I've never met John Fahey.
They blacklisted me to prevent the world from knowing what they had done and what I knew. A united front from Ottawa, Montreal to Lausanne, their sole intent was to protect the IOC from “civil, human rights exposure and consequential impact to the Olympic brand”, preserving at all cost the autonomous structure within which they operate outside the civil law and society as a whole—a behaviour familiar to the mob.
The IOC is a not a sporting organization; they are a brokerage business in sporting event management and do not run a single sport. The COC is a marketing franchisee, controlling the IOC's business channels in the Canadian marketplace selling the idealism of Olympism—utilizing the autonomous system.
By 2014, I would walk away from elite sport as my body had completely failed me. I decoupled myself from their autonomy. The next action I sought was expertise from CAS. They stated, “We are not a court of law and such cases need to be heard within civil courts and human rights tribunals.” They directed me to seek expertise in civil law and human rights.
I would seek legal counsel in Toronto on June 30, 2015, where the IOC, UCI, Cycling Canada, Cycling Ontario would be served...and WADA was subsequently served in January 2016 as a fifth respondent.
Thomas Bach would directly attack the survivor, suggesting that if I were successful “It would impact IOC's Swiss sovereignty, impacting the future Olympic movement”, and that “this was a sport issue and should be heard at the CAS.” Bach knew I had found the Achilles' heel. The IOC argued jurisdictional reach, and the HRTO denied their application.
The IOC's next step was inconceivable, “choosing to alter the policy without research” as a legal scheme to mitigate liability within a court system where they could no longer politicize nor control the outcome. They had to come with science, which they didn't have.
By pushing them outside the autonomous system, they were made to care. Ottawa, including the broadcasting licensee of the Olympic games, the CBC, remained silent, limiting public awareness of the IOC's presence in Canada. I would go it alone. The IOC would focus to hit the survivor with a bigger hammer.
On February 29, 2016, in the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, the IOC would present their policy into evidence, which was firmly rejected. They would lose the day and be ordered to appear in the HRTO with all the other respondents.
The IOC would hide, from sport, the outcome in Toronto, in an unsupported policy that would remain in place for five years, leading to worldwide consequence in sport and society, due to the IOC's concerns of statement against interest and impact to their brand.
The WADA lawyer at the HRTO proceedings weeks later said “We thought...Ms. Worley was going to give up.” They miscalculated the will of a survivor.
Their focus was to play a long game, utilizing the shield of the autonomy from the liability. Inevitably we would be successful preventing future physical harm and trauma experiences across the sporting globe.
Paul Melia, a panellist at the AthletesCAN safe sport meeting back in April 2019, chose the word “pioneer” when he confronted me in person, in an effort to relieve his anxieties as an abuser stating that I would never forget what he did to me, and I would have to live with it for the rest of my life.
Abuse in Canada's sport is systemic across the system in various forms. Indeed, “the autonomous system allows career abusers to reinvent themselves without accountability or oversight.”
By being here today in person, it was important to speak truth to power and for my own closure and not to live the life that Mr. Melia intended, releasing me from the carousel that they have kept me beholden to, while ensuring from this day forward that it never happens to anyone else of any age, at any level of sport participation in Canada.
Thank you.
