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This. You can be a hard task-master and a bit of a bastard to motivate and get the best out of elite athletes, but you can also do it without resorting to unprofessional language and selections based on other factors other than performance. Also the disproportion between the support and funding for men over women. That story from Cooke about the custom-fit bikes from Maclaren for all the men, even the reserves, for the 2012 road race and the women got nada is disgusting. By that time we had pissed off the entire peloton by winning the Worlds and the TdF, they were damned if they were going to help us win Olympic gold so everyone was riding against us so we won nothing, while it was the women that salvaged some pride with Armistead's silver.
I have no problem with coaches demanding the very best from their athletes, but they have to respect those athletes and not talk about them in such derogatory terms.
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Jimmy_Fingers
hippy
Totally. I dread to think the sort of vitriol Alex Ferguson's spouted in the dressing room in his time, and I doubt he's exceptional in that sense. Then again, Brian Clough was a hard man but still demanded gentlemanly conduct from himself and his players (didn't swear, asked that referees were shown respect). The idea that being authoritative somehow goes hand in hand with being misogynist/racist/homophobic and generally unpleasant doesn't follow; being disliked doesn't necessarily mean you're disrespected.