Japanese swim coach Takeo Inoki says on social media that he has resigned as head coach of the Bangladesh Swimming Federation’s national team due to punishments he says were inflicted on junior swimmers.
Inoki posted on Facebook about an incident he says happened on Sunday, October 20 involving the Bangladesh Junior National Team. While Inoki was working with the Senior National Team, he says a few junior national team members were punished for violating the team’s mobile phone rules.
Inoki says the junior swimmers were “required to wear long sleeve [sic] and long pants tracksuit,” and were given “meaningless physical exercise under the strong sun.” Inoki says it was nearly 40 degrees – that’s about 104 degrees Fahrenheit. His post says the punishments included running, somersaults and frog jumps on a hard, tiled surface. He also alleges that a teenage female swimmer “suddenly dropped to [the] hard tiled floor,” and that when he told the Junior National Team coaches to check on her, they laughed and said she was acting.
Inoki says the girl was unconscious, and that the other coaches took her somewhere by van. He says it is his responsibility to report the incident to FINA, and that he informed the Bangladesh federation of his resignation, despite the South Asian Games coming up in December.
Singapore’s The Straits Times reports that the Bangladesh federation said it was “surprised” at the resignation, but that a probe into the incident had been ordered. “The swimmers are allowed to keep a phone with them only one day a week,” said a representative in the Straits Times story. “They broke the rule and were punished. Usually these punishments are not very harsh.”
Inoki’s full Facebook post with the allegations is below:
Inoki seems like a very decent person.