An Australian Olympic sprinter has been banned from coaching athletics for four years after a tribunal found he had sexually harassed female athletes, including commenting on their racing attire telling one “Jesus Christ [redacted], what are you doing to me wearing those shorts”.
Mark Ladbrook, 54, represented Australia at the 1996 Atlanta Games in the 400m and 4x400m relay before becoming a coach of athletes competing at Olympic Games and World Championships. Ladbrook has also coached at the Victorian Institute of Sport, Rugby Australia, the Gold Coast Suns AFL team, and high schools in Melbourne and Queensland including Melbourne Grammar, Trinity Grammar and Somerset College.
His coaching accreditation was permanently revoked by Australian Athletics in 2025, and he appealed the decision to the National Sport Tribunal. In a judgment made public this week, the tribunal substantiated three of the five complaints against Ladbrook and found two to be partially substantiated, issuing him a four-year ban and requiring him to undergo further training.
In a statement to this masthead, Ladbrook wrote, “I am deeply disappointed by both the findings and the process that led to them. After more than ten months of proceedings, I do not believe the outcome reflects a fair, balanced, or evidence-based assessment of the facts. Throughout the hearing, critical context, witness statements, and character references were disregarded, while contested allegations were accepted with insufficient scrutiny.
“I acknowledge that I am not without fault and have accepted responsibility where appropriate, however I firmly maintain that the conclusions reached are disproportionate, procedurally flawed, and have caused irreversible damage to my 27-year coaching career and personal wellbeing. This matter should also serve as a warning to coaches and males in teaching or mentoring roles that, increasingly, feelings can be given precedence over facts, and decades of reputation and contribution can be destroyed almost instantly by allegations from disgruntled individuals unwilling to take accountability for their own actions.”
He also said there needed to be greater recognition of pyschological safety and support for coaches through an investigations process.
The five complaints against Ladbrook concern alleged conduct between 2019 and 2023 while he ran an elite coaching squad called Athletic4Life on the Gold Coast. They include making sexualised comments, curating or permitting a sexualised training environment, sexually harassing athletes, making negative remarks about the weight and appearance of athletes and failing to respect the boundaries between athlete and coach relationships. In revoking his accreditation, Australian Athletics referred to 41 separate incidents involving seven female members of the squad and three other female participants.
In the first complaint, Ladbrook was accused of commenting on a female athletes’ attire, saying “Jesus Christ [redacted], what are you doing to me wearing those shorts”. He also allegedly told an athlete “your voice is so husky… I like it” and sent an image to her of a woman in an orange bikini writing “I thought this was you”.
To another athlete, Labdrook is accused of sending a sexualised message asking them “what are you rubbing?” And sent a photo to the training squad’s group chat of a man wearing tight-fitting briefs with a rooster on the crotch and text “world’s greatest” which Australian Athletics said implied the phrase “world’s greatest cock”.
Ladbrook told the tribunal this behaviour was taken out of context and was meant to cheer up athletes or make a joke. Instead, the tribunal found these comments were “inappropriate, intrusive and sexual in nature”.
The second complaint said Ladbrook curated or permitted a sexualised environment in the squad. In one allegation, Ladbrook was said to have posted photos of two female athletes’ “buttocks” to Instagram with the captions “practice what you peach” and “life is peachy”.
Ladbrook said his athletes had come up with the captions and were intended to be light-hearted. But female athletes who gave evidence in the hearing said this behaviour existed in a pattern which together permitted a highly sexualised culture in the squad. The tribunal agreed and also found Ladbrook did not intervene when one athlete received a sex doll during Secret Santa one year, although the coach became uncomfortable and left the room.
The tribunal found two further allegations raised under the third complaint (that Ladbrook had sexually harassed athletes) couldn’t be substantiated but that his previous sexualised comments to athletes had amounted to sexual harassment anyway.
In the fourth allegation, Ladbrook was accused of making negative comments regarding his athletes’ weight and appearances with the tribunal finding his conduct contributed to disordered eating among female athletes.
He allegedly told one athlete to “drink water if hungry”, compared athletes bodies to one another, “touched and pinched” their abdomen, ribs and belly to point out where they needed to lose weight and left inappropriate comments on social media about one athlete’s weight. Ladbrook told the tribunal he never called an athlete fat or pressured them to lose weight but agreed he may have said words to the effect of “if you are hungry drink water”.
One comment Ladbrook denies making compared the physique of an athlete to a guinea pig’s.
The final complaint was partially substantiated when the tribunal found Ladbrook didn’t respect boundaries between coaches and athletes when inviting one athlete to one-on-one recovery sessions at Nobby’s Beach and when he travelled to Sydney and dined alone with an athlete at the Australian National Championships in 2021.
Ladbrook argued that all five complaints had been brought as part of a conspiracy by a small group of resentful athletes. In providing evidence, some athletes said they were shut down, belittled or bullied when speaking up about the alleged behaviour. Others, including 11 witnesses – some of whom were former and current athletes – were supportive of Ladbrook and four witnesses said they did not see the conduct Ladbrook was accused of.
The tribunal determined that it wasn’t necessary for “every member of the squad to have experienced misconduct for Code breaches to have been substantiated” and added that male witnesses may not have experienced “sexist, misogynistic and sexualised behaviour”.
Ladbrook was originally given a warning by Australian Athletics in May 2023 but was told that complaint wouldn’t proceed because the athletes who came forward wished to remain anonymous. One individual involved, referred to as Witness B, had made allegations about Ladbrook’s conduct towards them, but this was resolved and made subject to a confidentiality agreement.
Then in November 2024, another athlete made a formal complaint with Australian Athletics. This complaint became the basis for the sanction and tribunal hearings.
The tribunal found Ladbrook showed no genuine remorse or understanding of the impact his behaviour had on the athletes and said the sanction would serve as a deterrent for other coaches. Ladbrook can reapply for his national coaching accreditation in 2029.
On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Australian Athletics said, “The findings reflect the standards of behaviour Australian Athletics expects of every accredited coach in our sport and reinforce that conduct of this nature has no place in athletics. We acknowledge the courage of the complainant and the witnesses who came forward – their willingness to be heard is what allows our sport to be safer for athletes into the future.
“Athlete safety and wellbeing is the foundation of our sport, and Australian Athletics will continue to work with Sports Integrity Australia and our member associations to ensure that anyone who experiences or witnesses conduct of concern feels safe and supported in coming forward.”
