Lanni Marchant addresses House of Commons on abuse in sport

On Feb. 2, Canadian Olympian and former marathon record holder Lanni Marchant spoke to the House of Commons to discuss the abuse that she and many other Canadian athletes have suffered during their careers. This is Marchant’s second appearance before the House, with the first coming in the fall of 2016. Just as she did in her first speech six years ago, Marchant used her time to outline the different types of abuse so many athletes face in their many sport federations, and suggested ways that this toxic culture can be changed. 

While Marchant is still competing (she won the Honolulu Marathon in 2021, only five weeks after finishing 11th at the New York City Marathon), she also works as an attorney in the U.S., as well as chairing the newly formed Sport Canada Athlete Advisory Committee, which is funded by the Government of Canada and was “created to increase athlete representation in the sport system and to allow Sport Canada to obtain advice and guidance consistent with the lived experience of athletes in Canada.” 

Marchant has used her own experiences of abuse and maltreatment in an attempt to make sport in Canada safer for everyone. She asked the members of the House of Commons why it has taken them so long to fall in stride and do their part for Canadian athletes. 

“Since my [last] testimony, I did not sit back and wait for you, my government, to step up and help fix the very broken system I was expected to compete and thrive in,” Marchant said. “Instead, I took my experiences, my education and my desire to leave sport in Canada better than what I’d experienced and joined forces with AthletesCAN to be part of their Safe Sport Working Group.” Through her work with AthletesCAN and other sport agencies, Marchant said she realized that she “was not alone” in her experiences with maltreatment. “I realized just how normalized it is for athletes to be abused, demeaned and [to] suffer, all in the name of sport.” 

Marchant noted the importance of positive leaders in sport, such as her first running coach, Dave Mills, from the London Western Track and Field Club. “I do not know if I would have survived my high school running career and professional career since without him,” she said. She tempered this with a description of her time as a collegiate athlete, when her college coach “would openly discuss his favourite parts of [the female athletes’] bodies … [and] slut-shame the female runners and celebrate the guys for their dating activities.” 

Marchant said the systems in place for athletes back when she was in school “did not provide any solutions and certainly did not provide any protection to us.” She continued, asking, “How is it that my experiences in sport, dating all the way back to the 90s, and the fear that those environments thrived off of are still those same experiences described by athletes half my age today?”

Marchant notes that even now, with the government getting on board with the Sport Canada Athlete Advisory Committee, the situation is far from ideal, as this committee’s roles of “accountability, reporting and governance,” (as listed on the government’s web page) will not come into effect until April. “Why … do we have to wait until this spring to see it be mandatory for every national sports organization to sign on to the program?” she asked. 

“I have done my best over the past  six years to … be part of the fix for the Canadian sport system. I have to ask: where were you?” she said. “It isn’t my job to fix sport in Canada. It isn’t any athlete’s job. I have done everything I knew to do to try, though.”

To see Marchant’s full speech, click here.