Following is David Train's letter to his MP. Any support can be sent to
, or preferably via your own MP.

You can find details of your MP he

http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/mps.htm

and send a message from here (even find out who is your MP using your
PostCode):

http://www.writetothem.com/


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Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 12:59:20 EST
From:
Subject: Canoeing's 'drugs coach'
To: , , ,

Cc: , ,
, , ,
, , ,
,

Peter Luff MP.,
House of Commons,
London SW1A OAA
1st November 2005
Dear Peter,


Canoeing’s ‘drugs coach’

Those who oppose the appointment now plan to petition the London Games chief,
Lord Coe, and the British Olympic Association chair Lord Moynihan to press
for his removal. “If UK Sport are serious about their drugs policy he will
be dismissed forthwith,� says one club chairman, Dr Alan Bennett.

....but in this case they may have a point, as Ivanov’s employment in the
current anti-drugs climate by the British Canoe Union seems at best naive and
at worst a serious error of judgement.

Alan Hubbard: Independent on Sunday
30th October 2005

I am writing to ask you to immediately approach Lord Coe and Lord Moynihan,
and if need be to raise the matter in parliament, over the issue of the
appointment of a Bulgarian born coach, by the British Canoe, who has called
for the legalisation of drugs, and why the body responsible for drugs, UK
Sport is supporting this appointment. I believe it to be a national
disgrace that they should do so.

In the last few days I have written to Seb Coe and Colin Moynihan and I
enclose the letters, together with other information and the articles by Alan
Hubbard. As you know, I have had a battle with the whole Olympic
sport’s, and British Canoe Union’s, establishments, since 1997, over
their appeasement policy of going along with setting up an East German, top
down, command and control system, run, by a largely knowledgeless, highly
paid, imported management class, blindly using an outdated arbitrary target
management system, to please their political masters.

I warned, in my contribution to the Oxford Union debate, that to impose a
totalitarian system on Olympic sport, in the blind pursuit of medals, would
lead to cheating, bullying, blackmail, lying, spin, smear, and intimidation,
being used against athletes, coaches and clubs, by a management class,
redundant from day one. Now it has happened, and Fladbury, as always
are in the vanguard of the fight against this morally corrupt system, which
is now destroying our sport, and is about to destroy the main Olympic sport
of athletics.

Earlier this year the people of Fladbury rose up against the ill advised
remarks of Seb Coe, in the Fladbury versus Coe debate. We saw it as a
creative competition and set out the differences - Fladbury, being ‘Train
and Take Part and WE ALL WIN’, against the elitist Coe line that ‘Only
first place will do’ . To his great credit, Seb listened, and when it
came to the crunch, used the Fladbury philosophy, with its twin aims of
inspiring all to take part, and winning medals by continual improvement, to
win the London 2012 bid.

But accepting the Fladbury philosophy and winning the bid is the easy bit.
The hard bit is putting it into practice, and it is instances like this,
which will determine how serious we really are about putting theory into
practice.
Seb must be inspired to once again listen to the voices from Fladbury and
the growing number of clubs in canoeing and athletics, who now recognise
that there is something seriously wrong with this totalitarian system first
put in place by Sir Rodney Walker when chair of Sport England.

At many clubs in Britain we have been putting these ideas into practice for
years - they lie deep in out culture. Achieving Seb’s twin aims can
never be achieved by the creation of this new bureaucracy we call UK Sport,
but only by the will of the people who love and lead their sports. In the
case of canoeing, and athletics, our culture has always been a bottom up,
club based, rather than a top down system, and going, as it does, with the
grain of human nature, should be built on, rather than being destroyed by
highly paid knowledgeless, state bureaucrats. Our sports has historically,
also had a highly democratic structure, which was a means of stopping
managerial bullying,. In canoeing it has been steadily eroded by a
state created management class looking solely after its own needs and
athletics is now being bullied to follow the same disastrous path.

There are those who wish to gain power to tell us what to do and there are
those who wish to gain power to create an environment where young people can
grow and develop to their maximum potential - which, for some, will mean
Olympic golds. We must have, at the top of Olympic sport, leaders of the
latter type, and they do not come from a bureaucratic management class, such
as we now have at UK Sport. It is sometimes difficult for those, not too
deeply involved, to grasp the wider implications of all of this, and it is
often the case that we have to wait for some incident to focus on, which
then becomes the catalyst for change. I believe that this case can provide
such a catalyst, and if Seb Coe and Colin Moynihan grasp the opportunity,
then the whole of British sport and society will be the winners.
Totalitarianism has no part to play in British sport or society, and the
time has come for us to bring it to a halt.

The issue is now clear. The only choice people have to make is whether they
back British coaches and clubs who have expressed, throughout their lives,
the very best of British sporting values, or those who still express the very
worst values of the totalitarian systems of the former Eastern Bloc. The
coaches of Fladbury have made their decision - they will never come under the
command of any foreign coach who believes that drug taking should be made
legal - even if it means that we come out of Olympic sport, and close the
Fladbury Paddle Club, that has served Britain, and Mid Worcestershire, with
honour, for thirty three years.

We do not want any of the young people of your constituency of Mid
Worcestershire ever to be tainted by by being associated with such values.
Neither will we ever accept Fladbury paddlers, or coaches, being bullied,
blackmailed, lied to, or intimidated, by servants of the state. Only by
doing that, can we keep democracy alive in sport, and ensure our future
freedoms. I would hope that as our MP you would take that message to Lord
Coe, Lord Moynihan, and parliament.

Here, at the site of the Battle of Evesham we have drawn our line in the sand
on the ethics of Olympic sport. If the Lord’s Coe and Moynihan wish to
join in this latest battle for English freedom we would be delighted to have
them at our side. Otherwise, we must turn to the parliament, and the
people of Britain to save the soul of Olympic sport. As our Member of
Parliament I ask you to lead the way, and I am sure that you will be only
too delighted to do so on behalf of the people of Mid Worcestershire.

My very best wishes,

Good paddling,


David W. Train.

Lord Coe, Lord Moynihan, Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP., Ken Livingstone Mayor of
London. Sue Campbell. BCU., BOA Sir Rodney Walker.



--

The Times:

Times 02 11 05
p74

Coach In Trouble

Drugs in sport: A canoeing coach to Great Britain's national development
squad is being investigated over allegations that he called for all
competitors to be allowed to take drugs so that no athlete would have an
unfair advantage. Krassimir Ivanov is claimed to have made the statement in
an interview with a newspaper in Belgium.

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The Telegraph:

Telegraph 02 11 05
Screening for coaches
By Tom Knight

A screening programme to monitor foreign coaches coming to work in Britain
is to be introduced by UK Sport.

With more coaches expected to arrive as part of the drive for excellence in
the build-up to the 2012 Olympics, it will be down to the Government's
anti-doping agency to look into their backgrounds.

The move follows recent comments attributed to Krassimir Ivanov, the
Bulgarian given a key coaching role in the British Canoe Union.

Ivanov was quoted in a Belgian newspaper saying he believed drugs should be
legalised to provide a level playing field. He later claimed the comments
had been taken out of context.

Ivanov had admitted taking drugs when he was competing for Bulgaria but
insisted athletes were told they were taking vitamins. UK Sport, however,
want Ivanov to explain his comments.

John Scott, the UK Sport Chief Executive, said: "There should be a
distinction between those athletes who had a system imposed on them and
those who were administering the system.

"However, we have sought confirmation about his attitude to drugs and a
statement that he will abide by the anti-doping policy of the BCU and
ourselves. We need to ensure governing bodies can be confident who they are
appointing."

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In order to be fair, and for completeness:

http://newsfeed.tcm.ie/irishexaminer...=2668918819 4

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/london20...606414,00.html

http://sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/m...2/soaths02.xml

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...853874,00.html

Also in the Daily Mail, I hear.

It seems that the newly announced policy of screening new coaches for drugs
involvement is a sham and a smokescreen. Their standards are set so low that
Ivanov still escapes sanctions except for being forced to proclaim an
anti-drugs stance.

All they have to do is say they thought they were taking vitamins and they
were quoted out of context.

Allan Bennett
Not a fan of smoke and mirrors

--

Week 3:

HeadLine Inside Lines
Publication Independent on Sunday Date 06/11/2005
Byline by Alan Hubbard Sports Diarist of the Year


Drug paddling row leads to new checks

British canoeing vehemently denies it is up the creek without the proverbial
paddle despite the furore following our stories about the controversial
views of the new national coach, Krassimir Ivanov, who has advocated the use
of drugs albeit, he claims, in a "hypothetical situation". Ivanov has now
stated that he would never promote the use of illegal substances, nor
encourage any athlete to do so, and "totally supports" the anti drugs stance
of the British Canoe Union and UK Sport. But he admits "naivety" in the
original interview, published in a Belgian journal. UK Sport, who ordered an
investigation, are satisfied with the Bulgarian's explanation, but have
acted positively, if you'll pardon the expression, to put in place a
screening system to check any drugs involvement by all foreign coaches
employed here in the run-up to 2012. Fair enough, but let us ask a
'hypothetical' question: would Ivanov, with his background - he admitted
being given substances as a competitor but says he was not aware if they were
performance-enhancing - have been employed by the BCU while London was
bidding for 2012? The answer is no. Seb Coe would have had a blue fit. So
why hire him now?

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