NEWGEIN - An independent study is also being conducted into the top sports culture in the Dutch judo world. According to judo association JBN, this is at its own request after "recently" signals have been received "of transgressive behaviour, possible intimidation and the reign of a culture of fear."
As a result, concerns have arisen “with regard to social safety and the performance climate within the top sports program and the talent development programme,” said federation chairman Tessa Brouwer.
Those reports would not be of such a serious nature that immediate intervention is necessary. "At the moment there is no single acute specific case," says Brouwer. “Everyone involved in our top sport gets the chance to tell his or her story, positively and negatively. We take the signals seriously and therefore want independent research to be carried out.”
Judo and jiu-jitsu are included in an ongoing, independent research within top sport. That research is now in a pilot phase, including the sports volleyball, ice hockey and cycling. This should be expanded to at least twenty sports later in the main study. The term is approximately three years.
The then outgoing State Secretary Paul Blokhuis (Public Health and Sport) announced the large-scale investigation last autumn. The reason was the voluminous report about abuses in gymnastics, which revealed that numerous gymnasts have been victims of psychological and also physical abuse by coaches. Last year also transgressive behavior at the top sports center of the triathlon association came to light.
Marjan Olfers, also involved in the research into the abuses in gymnastics, calls it interesting for the research "that an association is involved where the top sports culture is actually being discussed at the time of research."
Swimming association KNZB also announced an independent investigation in November into possible transgressive behavior in sport. Guust Jutte, Sport manager at the union, said at the time that there was no reason to think that swimming often involves transgressive behavior. "Our view is that it stays with incidents, although every incident is one too many."
