A growing scandal in British swimming has erupted following shocking testimonies from Olympic and elite swimmers who say they endured years of bullying, emotional abuse, and unsafe training practices under one of the UK’s most decorated coaches, Jon Rudd.
BBC Panorama has uncovered systemic failures at one of the country’s top swim clubs and within its national governing body, Swim England.
At the heart of the revelations is Olympic gold medallist Rūta Meilutytė, who described being “broken” by Rudd’s punishing and demeaning coaching methods during her teenage years at Plymouth Leander, a club once hailed for producing Olympic-level athletes.
“He made me for a while and then he broke me,” said Meilutytė, now 28, who shot to fame after clinching gold in the 100m breaststroke at the London 2012 Olympics at the age of 15.
She moved from Lithuania to the UK in 2010 to train under Rudd. But behind her rapid rise to success, Meilutytė says she endured a toxic environment that contributed to an eating disorder and depression.
“He told me my ass was fat before a major competition,” she said. At one point, she confided in Rudd about self-induced vomiting to lose weight. She recalls his disturbing response: “Well, at least you get the calories out.”
While she says Rudd did later help her seek support, the emotional toll had already taken root. Her story is echoed by 11 other former swimmers who spoke to Panorama, detailing a “controlling food culture,” constant weight scrutiny, and emotionally harmful training regimes.
Several claimed that the club under Rudd operated with an intense, fear-driven environment where physical pain, psychological distress, and personal boundaries were routinely ignored.
Among the whistleblowers is Cassie Patten, a 2008 Olympic bronze medallist, who says her swimming career was cut short in 2011 after Rudd forced her to train through a serious shoulder injury. “He didn’t listen to my pain,” she told Panorama. “He pushed me until I couldn’t swim anymore.”
Phoebe Lenderyou, a Commonwealth Youth Games gold medallist, also reported that Rudd’s methods worsened her eating disorder. “There was a constant fear of being judged and weighed,” she said.
These accounts have put Swim England under intense scrutiny, particularly over its failure to act on a damning 2012 internal investigation.
The report, obtained by the BBC following a tip-off in 2023, recommended Rudd be suspended for four months after interviewing 17 witnesses. Yet no action was taken, and the findings remained secret for over a decade.
Andy Salmon, who took over as Swim England’s CEO in February 2024, acknowledged the failure. “Clearly the organisation failed to act on the independent recommendations made at the time,” Salmon told the BBC. “And I’m deeply, deeply sorry to all those harmed.”
Rudd, who left Plymouth Leander in 2017 and later rose to become Swim Ireland’s performance director, has not responded to repeated BBC requests for comment. He is currently poised to become the high performance director for Saudi Arabia’s Olympic swimming team.
Adding further controversy to Rudd’s tenure, former Plymouth Leander swimmer Antony James—whom Rudd coached from childhood—was jailed in February for 21 years for raping two girls he met through the club.
Several swimmers told Panorama that James’s inappropriate interest in teenage girls was an “open secret” and that Rudd should have been aware.
One of James’s former girlfriends, herself a swimmer at the club, said: “Everyone knew. He wasn’t hiding it. I think I was a gateway to him grooming other younger girls.”
Although Plymouth Leander has distanced itself from the Rudd era, issuing a statement saying it is now “fundamentally different,” and claiming it conducted a “thorough review” of safeguarding procedures, the systemic failures reach further.
Plymouth College, which partnered with the swim club until earlier this year, now operates a separate programme under the name Plymouth College Aquatics. While the school claims the club held safeguarding responsibility, it has also expressed deep concern over the accounts revealed by Panorama.
The scandal is not isolated to Plymouth. BBC Panorama has also unearthed recent allegations of bullying at Royal Wolverhampton School Swimming Club.
Abby, a 17-year-old former swimmer, described being forced to train through her GCSE exams and suffering full-blown panic attacks. “I was literally breaking down,” she said. “I had to choose between swimming and my education.”
Despite parents of 11 swimmers raising formal complaints in 2023 and 2024 about head coach David Painter, Swim England deferred responsibility to the school, according to the club’s former welfare officer Alison Hickman, who claimed none of the parents were contacted by the governing body.
Painter, who has since moved to coach in Canada, denied all allegations and stated his commitment to athlete welfare. “I’ve never been subject to disciplinary investigations or hearings,” he said, calling the claims “untrue and defamatory.”
Swim England now faces a reckoning. Following Panorama’s findings, the organisation has committed to reviewing 1,500 historical safeguarding cases dating back to 2002.
A 2024 listening report it commissioned, prompted by earlier media revelations, described a “culture of fear” pervading all levels of aquatic sports—a threat to the future of swimming in the UK.
The case of Jon Rudd, once a national coaching icon, highlights not just the personal toll on young athletes but also the broader institutional neglect that allowed such conduct to go unchecked for decades.
For Meilutytė and others, the damage has already been done. “There’s no denying that he helped build me into a world-class swimmer,” she said. “But at what cost? No success should ever come at the price of someone’s mental or physical wellbeing.”
As more stories emerge, Swim England’s promise of reform will be tested—not only in its safeguarding protocols but in its willingness to dismantle a culture that for too long prioritised medals over mental health.
