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Athletics Canada updates criminal record check policy in wake of oversight
Athletics Canada has changed its policy on criminal record checks after discovering that the father and part-time coach of world champion pole vaulter Shawn Barber was convicted in the U.S. of having sex with a high school student.
George Barber, who was a teacher and coach in New Mexico, was convicted in 2007 of criminal sexual penetration of a 17-year-old student in 2005 and is a registered sexual offender in that state.
Athletics Canada does background checks on coaches but didn’t pick this up because it happened in the U.S., spokesperson Mathieu Gentes said.
“We’ve just updated our policies, so for any international coaches there now has to be an Interpol search which would have found this.”
The national governing body for track and field also banned him from coaching or representing the association in any capacity. That means he can’t get accreditation as a personal coach to his son for the Rio Olympics the way he did for the Pan Am Games.
“Athletics Canada did what they felt they had to do,” Shawn Barber said in a statement. “I understand and don’t fault them for their actions. My training and competition plans will continue as programmed and will hopefully result in successful performances.”
Barber has other coaches, but his father has long played a role in his career and he’s the reason the American-born and raised 21-year-old competes for Canada.
George Barber was a Canadian pole vaulter in the 1980s and his son wanted to follow in his athletic footsteps. Shawn Barber is one of the few dual-citizen athletes who opted to compete for Canada because he wanted to, not because it was his only option.
He was just five when he started using makeshift poles to jump over things around the family farm in New Mexico. By the time he was 10, he already was beating some high school athletes in the pole vault pit.
He made his international breakthrough at the world juniors in 2012 and, since then, has rewritten the Canadian record books numerous times and climbed international rankings. This past season was particularly stellar for the Canadian, who gave up his final year of NCAA eligibility at the University of Akron to sign a professional contract.
In July, he won gold at the Toronto Pan Am Games and, just days later, broke his own Canadian record by jumping 5.93 metres in London.
In August, he won gold at the world championships in Beijing — beating the world record holder — and giving Canada its first world gold in anything other than a sprint event.
Barber is a medal favourite for the 2016 Rio Olympics. The Athletics Canada ban means if his father intends to attend, he’ll have to buy a ticket and watch from the stands.
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