A Postmedia investigation reveals the stories of four men who all allege sexual improprieties while running for the Edmonton Olympic Club under coach Ken Porter in the 1970s. The coach denies all w…
Chris Dallin was a teenage track and field star who set two Canadian records in hurdles, won gold at the 1981 Canada Summer Games, and caught the eye of national coaches dazzled by his speed and strength.
Postmedia has spoken to four of the men who contacted Athletics Canada, the national governing body for track and field. All were teenagers competing for the Edmonton Olympic Club in the 1970s and all were coached by Porter. Some of the former athletes were irked when they read about Porter’s suspension. After all these years, it seemed like he was being disciplined for the wrong reason.
They also caused a “mushrooming” of more people coming forward to the Athletics Canada Commissioner’s Office, said André Marin, an independent investigator hired to conduct the investigation. The only exception was Dallin, who decided in 2007 to report the alleged abuse, first to his local RCMP detachment and then to police in Saskatoon — the city where the alleged sexual assault occurred. Now, at Dallin’s request, Athletics Canada is liaising with police about his cold case.
In elementary school, Dallin won every event at every track meet. At age 15, in 1978, he was recruited to the Edmonton Olympic Club after being noticed by Porter, whom he described as “one of the top coaches in Western Canada.” Dallin didn’t tell anyone what was happening because he didn’t want anything or anybody to stop him from winning at his sport. “It was kind of verboten. He was our ticket to being great athletes. And so you didn’t want to rock the boat there.”
He threatened to phone police, but was talked out of it, recalled Dallin, who first turned to alcohol, and later pot, to try to mask his pain. “From that minute life changed,” he told the RCMP. “I was quite naive as a 15-year-old with any of this stuff,” he said. “When he did that to me, it was unexpected. I didn’t know what was going to happen. So I quickly ran to the bathroom, shut the door and locked it.Roughly 20 years ago, after learning Porter was coaching children with the Ottawa Lions club, Rhodes sent an email to the then-president of Athletics Ontario, saying he wanted to report some concerns.
A fourth complainant, who now lives in Metro Vancouver and also did not want to be identified because of the personal details in the story, joined the Edmonton Olympic Club when he was 15 and competed under its banner for several years in the late 1970s. Marin, the investigator, has now submitted a 200-page report to Athletics Canada commissioner Frank Fowlie, who will look over the findings regarding potential code of conduct violations, solicit feedback from those named in the report, and ultimately decide whether any workplace rules were broken before June 30.
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