American speed coach on defense Olympic 200m champion Andre De Grasse has been banned from Paris 2024 following a claim of sexual and emotional abuse.
Canada is believed to have withdrawn entry to the Games from Rana Reider, who also coaches former 100m champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs. The 54-year-old was not present at the Stade de France on Tuesday as De Grasse breezed through its opening heat to qualify second.
The elite coach had previously been sanctioned by US Safesport for an alleged relationship that “presented an imbalance of power” with one of his athletes. Reider, who also coached British athletes Adam Gemili and Daryll Neita Before being released, he served a period of probation, though his attorney said Reider “was not found in violation of any other allegations of sexual misconduct” made against him at the time.
In 2022, Reider was denied accreditation for the World Championships in Eugene amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him. He was unable to obtain accreditation through either the U.S. team or another national team. However, he was found inside the venue before an evening session and police intervened.
A World Athletics spokesperson said at the time: “Event security discovered an unaccredited person in the athletes’ warm-up area. He was asked to leave but refused.
“The police were immediately notified and they set about removing him from the scene. When they saw the police officers approaching him, they left the scene.
In recent weeks, three women filed a new lawsuit in a Florida court accusing Reider.
Telegraph Sport has seen evidence of the court documents, which were first reported by The Times newspaper. The full content of the allegations of sexual and emotional abuse is not known, but USA Track and Field is believed to have reported the case to their Canadian counterparts, who in turn informed Reider that he will be stripped of access to the Games. Reader’s lawyer has been contacted for comment.
Organisers have already come under pressure from anti-sex abuse campaigners. Australian child sex offender Brett Sutton was photographed in the women’s triathlon with Swiss Julie Derron wearing an Olympic cord over his tracksuit top in China.
Sutton pleaded guilty in 1999 to five counts of sexually abusing a 13-year-old Australian girl he had coached in the 1980s, and received a two-year suspended prison sentence.
But the biggest abuse scandal of the Games has been that of Dutch volleyball player Steven van de Velde, who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 after raping a 12-year-old British girl. Van de Velde had travelled from the Netherlands to the UK in August 2014, when he was 19, to meet his victim.
In almost all cases, accreditation and qualification is the responsibility of the national federation.
