British Bobsleigh head coach resigns months before Pyeongchang

The event in South Korea is less than five months away, but the Swiss sent an email – seen by the BBC – to athletes and staff saying he had to resign because he felt he could not continue to decide the team’s strategy. Scherrer was hired by British Bobsleigh in 2012 and the governing body say they will announce the appointment of a new head coach in the next 24 hours. The team had initially progressed under Scherrer, with the four-man bob finishing fifth in Sochi, three years ago. But a BBC investigation revealed in June that British Bobsleigh had been contacted by GB athletes complaining about bullying, racism, sexism and discrimination. Two months later, performance director Gary Anderson stopped carrying out certain duties, citing health issues as the reason for this withdrawal. There has been no official report to suggest that Scherrer or Anderson were guilty of the allegations levelled by the athletes and, in his email, the former head coach emphasised that he did not want to leave room for speculation. "The reasons for my resignation are: until now it was possible for me to decide what strategy we use. This is no longer possible," he said. "I have always been success oriented, I don't feel comfortable with the current strategy and I don't have the competence to make decisions in that regard. "Also, it will not be possible to work with the same performance team in the future. "What made us successful in the past is that I could be who I am. This is, for reasons that we all could not have foreseen, no longer possible."

Sportsbeat 2017