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Lupien Gets An Answer

Oct 24, 2000

After 12 years of training Yannick Lupien thought he had done everything necessary to get on the Olympic team and a chance to swim his two favoured events in Sydney, the 50 and 100m freestyle.

He found himself in for quite a surprise. It seems that Lupien's name had been left of the teams official entry for the 50m freestyle event. Lupien was informed of the problem by his personal coach Michel Berube who was an assistant coach with the Canadian team in Sydney.

Lupien never really knew the course of events that transpired to lead to his name being omitted from the event. A week after being back in Canada and the issue being taken up by local and national newspapers, Lupien received a phone call from Head Coach Dave Johnson who told him that the oversight was his and that the entries took place at the same time the Canadian Swimming Association was moving its offices.

Last week he received an email outlining the course of events that took place explaining how his name was left off the entry list.

"Johnson had simply forgot to enter my name", that's all I was told. "No one ever told me how this could happen."

"No one is explaining to me how my 12 years of work is gone because he forgot to enter my name."

Yesterday Yannick received a personal handwritten letter from coach Johnson offering an apology to Yannnick's parents and offering to compensate them for the price of the competition tickets in Sydney ($600.00), but still no apology for him.

"They should have sent it directly to my parents, not to me. It's a letter to my parents. There's no apology in this letter for me. I didn't get any, 'I'm sorry'."

"Dave Johnson doesn't lose anything and I lost the 50 free."

"I just want to make people aware of this situation, its frustrating for me."