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Skating drama


Airehead

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A day before his death, Coughlin, 33, was temporarily suspended from US figure skating by the US Center for SafeSport amid a pending grievance, US Figure Skating officials said without disclosing details of the matter. The center is a US Olympic Committee agency with oversight of sexual misconduct and other abuse allegations reported to national governing bodies.

His sister has posted that it was suicide.

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It's all incredibly sad.   I'm not very clear on the Safesport process, but from what I understand, the claims were in an allegation stage and no finding had been made.  Nobody has officially said what the claims were.  However, as the investigation was pending, member organizations that are part of the safesport process suspend the person while the investigation progresses.  This mean he lost his job as an announcer and as a representative for a boot company and he wasn't able to do any coaching. 

Without knowing any of the facts of the allegations, it's impossible for most of us to know what happened. Clearly nice people can sometimes do bad things and the Nasser scandal in gymnastics highlights the need to take kids' welfare seriously. . But most people who knew John well were shocked by the allegations and  supported him.  In a sport with a lot of drama and interesting personalities, John was always a steady, nice guy.

There has also been a lot of discussion of mental health and depression issues in the sport recently as a number of high profile skaters have taken a break to deal with mental health issues.  The whole situation is just tragic and my heart hurts for his Dad and sister (his Mom died a few years ago)

 

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2 hours ago, shootingstar said:

People who are high achievers can sometimes be very  hard on themselves and mistakenly see their worth by how others perceive them.  I know. ?  My sister was a high achiever, had far deeper depression problems than our family realized.  She died by suicide.

 

I am so sorry, star, very sad. suicide is so tough on the living.   

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I appreciate your kindness here.  We lost her nearly 10 yrs. ago.

It has been tough. Her daughter who was a geophysicist, dropped out of her profession a few years after her mother's death. She is now writing romance novels..featuring lovers where 1 or both characters are biracial / Chinese-Canadian. She has featured a heroine who has depression but does have a boyfriend in the end:  a strong message that people who have depressive episodes also want/deserve to have love.  Since her mother's death, she has increasingly taken up the torch to write/promote the depiction of diverse, non-white lovers in English language novels.  

Her novels do have some snippets borrowed from real life...she features Chinese funny, interfering grandmother....which believe me, is not at all like real grandmother (my mother).  Sibling closeness/loyalty, characters sometimes eat Chinese food and other diverse foods....found when characters are living in a big city.  She features fictional neighbourhoods are based on real neighbourhood Toronto streets.  Her heroine characters are women often working professionals in the engineering, technical or medical sector.  As an aunt, I've encouraged to show this part of the world which she has far more intimate knowledge (than some guys here.  Sorry. It's real.). One of her books has all sorts of puns, some sexual about geological formations, minerals, etc.

The act of writing such novels...to me, is like an enormous hope, wish for happily ever after ending in life. As an aunt, this is what I tell her and others:  She is writing stories about love and hope.....She is married in real life to a great guy.  But the loss of her mother hangs about, hard to shake at times. 

 

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