Mike Tancred steps down from AOC position pending bullying investigation

Mike Tancred, the Australian Olympic Committee’s long-time media director, has stepped down from his position while any investigation into claims of bullying within the organisation is undertaken.

AOC chief executive Fiona De Jong brought complaints to light over the weekend, prompting AOC president John Coates to call an executive meeting on Wednesday evening to discuss the accusations.

But before the board sat, the AOC announced Tancred had temporarily relinquished his post.

“The AOC has this afternoon received notice from Mike Tancred that he is standing down from [his] position of AOC director of media and communications pending the outcome of any investigation of the complaint made against [him] by Fiona de Jong,” an AOC statement read.

De Jong had accused Tancred of threatening her and her family late last year and attempting to blackmail her into withdrawing a previous complaint. De Jong said she had not felt safe being alone with him.

De Jong said she had made a complaint four months ago and told Coates of his behaviour, but nothing had been done.

Tancred has denied her accusations.

“I have made no comment to any of the allegations because I am bound by a confidentially agreement which I signed,” he told AAP. “Ms de Jong also signed that agreement but breached it over the weekend.”

He was at the centre of further allegations on Wednesday, when Fairfax reported another former AOC employee accused him of harassment after she took two days’ leave before the Beijing Olympics in 2008 due to a miscarriage.

The woman told Fairfax she had “witnessed numerous outbursts” from Tancred “which usually contained foul and derogatory language towards members of staff and external parties”.

After she miscarried her baby in China in the run up to the Beijing Olympics, she said she worked the requisite long hours for the duration of the Games. On her return to Australia, she developed an infection and sought a doctor’s certificate, the validity of which she said Tancred disputed at a subsequent meeting in Sydney.

She told Fairfax he also questioned her commitment to the job and pressured her into telling him details of her illness.

Tancred responded to the allegations by telling Fairfax that had he known about the pregnancy he would not have allowed the woman to travel with the AOC to Beijing. He said he was “concerned for her” after her work had “fallen away”.

Tancred also denied the woman’s claim that she had made a formal complaint to the AOC.

“I was contacted by one of my staff to tell me [the woman] was in hospital,” he told AAP. “I contacted her immediately and offered to fly her straight home to Australia.

“We also had an email exchange where she told me she had a stomach bug and would be returning to work the next day. There was no mention of a miscarriage.”

After they returned from China, Tancred said he met with the woman and “asked if there was a problem because she was a great worker and a valued member of the team”.

“It was then that she said she had lost a baby in Beijing. This was the first I had heard of it. I was distressed.

“I did everything I could to assist and support her in Beijing without knowing the seriousness of her condition.”

Coates, who is strongly backed by Tancred in the election, called Wednesday’s meeting but refused to label it a crisis meeting. It is instead, he said, an opportunity for a “sensible discussion”.

The election race has been become increasingly bitter as Coates seeks to hang on to the position he has held since 1990. He is being challenged by the former Hockeyroo and Olympian, Danni Roche.

Coates wrote in a letter to the AOC executive and national sporting organisations on Tuesday that he was the victim of a “a coordinated and sadly vindictive campaign to damage me personally, and to tarnish all that has been achieved at the AOC”.

The vote takes place at the AOC’s annual general meeting in Sydney on 6 May.

Guardian Australia has sought comment from Tancred.

The AOC refused to make further comment.