PARIS (AP) — An Australian swimming coach came under fire from his own team on Thursday after saying was pulling for a South Korean athlete to beat his country's medal contenders at the Olympics.
Head coach Rohan Taylor called the comments by Michael Palfrey “un-Australian” and said he might be sent home before the swimming competition, which begins Saturday at La Defense Arena in the western Paris suburbs.
“Very disappointed. Extremely disappointed,” Taylor said. “For a coach on our team to promote another athlete ahead of our athletes is not acceptable.”
Palfrey is part of the Australian staff at the Olympics, overseeing the preparations for three swimmers and working with a fourth athlete as well. But he previously coached South Korean men’s 400-meter freestyle world champion Kim Woo-min.
In an interview with South Korean television, Palfrey said he was pulling for Kim to claim gold in that event on the opening day of the swimming competition.
“I really hope he can win, but ultimately I really hope he swims well,” Palfrey said. He added, “Go Korea.”
Palfrey has conceded making the comment and apologized for the lapse in judgment, according to Taylor, but it may not be enough to keep him in Paris. The head coach said he would meet with the athletes later Thursday to discuss whether Palfrey should remain at the Olympics.
“For me, my priority is the performance of the team, the performance of the athletes,” Taylor said. “I need to look at the performance of the team and make a judgment call on that.”
Australia has two of the leading gold-medal contenders in the 400 freestyle: 2023 world champion Sam Short and 2022 world champion Elijah Winnington.
It's not unusual for coaches to work with athletes from other countries. One of the top American coaches, Bob Bowman, leads a training group that includes French star Léon Marchand.
But in an Olympic year, Taylor said, it was totally unacceptable for a coach on the Australian staff to express support for another country's swimmer.
“We confronted him with those details,” Taylor said. “He owns that and was taken to task for it. He's very remorseful and we're now dealing with it.”
Australian swimmer Bronte Campbell, competing in her fourth Olympics, said the controversy has “barely caused a ripple” within the powerhouse team, which is expecting a big medal haul at the pool.
“When you come into an Olympic Games, it’s all about protecting your energy. It's a big, long, emotional competition,” she said. “Everyone knows what they have to do. We always talk about focusing on performance first. The way you do that is focusing on the things you can control that are right in front of you."
Another Aussie swimmer, Zac Stubblety-Cook, said he understands why Palfrey's comments have stirred up such discord.
“Yes, it's disappointing, but it hasn’t rocked the boat too much," Stubblety-Cook said.
Still, it was an unwanted distraction with the Games fast approaching.
“It's just very, very disappointing to me that one of our coaches promoted another athlete ahead of our athletes," Taylor said. "That really is the thing that concerns me and disappoints me.”
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Australian swimmer Kaylee McKeown walks from the pool deck following a training session ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
Australian swimmers and coaches check out the pool at La Defense Arena ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Murder charges filed against the father of a 14-year-old boy accused of a Georgia school shooting follow the successful prosecution of two parents in Michigan who were held responsible for a similar tragedy at a school north of Detroit.
Is it a sign of a crackdown on parents accused of gross negligence when it comes to kids and guns? Could public outrage lead to more prosecutions or changes in law in other states, too?
“It’s a matter of looking at the relationship between what the child says and does and what the parent knows about what the child says and does,” said David Shapiro, a former prosecutor who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
Colin Gray, 54, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder related to the deaths of two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta. Nine more people were wounded.
Gray's son, Colt Gray, is charged with murder. Investigators said he used a "semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle” in the attack.
The charges against Colin Gray "are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon,” said Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
James and Jennifer Crumbley were convicted of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year for the deaths of four students at Oxford High School in 2021. It was the first time that parents were held criminally responsible for a U.S. mass school shooting. They're serving 10-year prison terms while appeals are pending.
The Crumbleys didn't know what son Ethan Crumbley was planning. But prosecutor Karen McDonald said their son's actions were foreseeable. They were summoned to discuss the 15-year-old's macabre drawings of a gun and blood on a math assignment and a message, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me. My life is useless.”
The Crumbleys declined to take him home but said they would seek counseling. On that same day, Ethan Crumbley removed a gun from his backpack and began shooting, using a weapon that James Crumbley had purchased as a gift just a few days earlier. No one — parents or school staff — had checked the backpack.
The parents' “actions and inactions were inexorably intertwined” with what their son ultimately did at Oxford, the Michigan Court of Appeals said in 2023 when the groundbreaking case was allowed to move forward.
Prosecutor Brad Smith declined to publicly disclose details that led him to charge Colin Gray in the Apalachee shooting. But in arrest warrants, authorities said he had provided a gun to his son "with knowledge that he was threat to himself and others.”
Smith acknowledged the Michigan case during a news conference Friday and said his case was a first for Georgia.
“I'm not trying to send a message,” he said. “I'm just trying to use the tools in my arsenal to prosecute people for the crimes they commit.”
Colin Gray was interviewed last year when authorities were investigating his son about a menacing post on social media. The father said the teen “knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do, and how to use them and not use them," according to a transcript. Nothing more was pursued.
McDonald, the prosecutor in Michigan, said the Georgia shooting and the father's arrest was a “real punch in the stomach.”
“I can't believe the facts that stood out as so egregious in our case seem to be so similar,” she told The Associated Press.
McDonald said states have laws that carry consequences for gross negligence in various situations. She said it's encouraging that police in Georgia immediately investigated how the gun was obtained.
“I have never felt it was a moment that would open the floodgates to charges against parents or sending a message to people,” McDonald said of the Crumbley case. “Most people don't need that message. It's heartbreaking to watch it play out.”
She said it takes only seconds to put a lock on a gun, which she demonstrated for a jury.
Shapiro, the former New Jersey prosecutor, said all states likely have laws that can be used to hold parents responsible, though much depends on the facts and a prosecutor's views.
“You don’t want to be able to allow parents to overlook those kinds of signs there is something seriously wrong or a serious risk,” he said.
Michigan has a new law this year that requires adults to keep guns locked up when minors are present. In Newaygo County, a grandfather pleaded no contest in August in the death of a 5-year-old grandson. Another boy had picked up and fired a loaded shotgun.
“If people simply locked up their firearms, we would not be putting parents behind bars for this reason,” said Kris Brown, the president of Brady, a gun violence prevention group. "And we would not be digging as many graves.”
AP reporters Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this story.
Follow Ed White at https://twitter.com/edwritez
Flowers are placed outside the entrance to Apalachee High School on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024 in Winder, Ga., a day after deadly shootings at the school. (AP Photo/Sharon Johnson)
People leave Apalachee High School, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Winder, Ga. A shooting at the Georgia high school Wednesday caused an unknown number of injuries and a suspect was arrested in a chaotic scene. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
A person kneels in front of flowers that are placed outside the entrance to Apalachee High School on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024 in Winder, Ga., a day after deadly shootings at the school. (AP Photo/Charlotte Kramon)
This combo of booking images provided by the Barrow County, Ga., Sheriff's Office shows Colin Gray, left, and his son Colt Gray, who have been charged in relation to the Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, shootings at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga. (Barrow County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Colin Gray, 54, the father of Apalachee High School shooter Colt Gray, 14, sits in the Barrow County courthouse for his first appearance, on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
