SquashTalk>Women's World Open >Womens World Teams, Carol Owens Absence

[last update was 21-nov-00 ]

From the World Open Teams Program: "Carol Owens Quits with Attitude"

11.20.00 by Howard Harding for WSF

Eye Group Women's World Open Squash Championship, Sheffield UK

The following appears in this week's World Open Program:

"OWENS QUITS WITH ATTITUDE
"Australia's top ranked player Carol Owens has quit the Australian team. In an outburst at the British Open she explained her decision to the press.

"They do not give me one penny of support," she said of Squash Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport, "and they don't pay me to play for the team. I pay Paul Wright good money to make myself the best player I can be and Squash Australia, who are always pleading poverty, think they can just use me when they want. That they don't have the money is not my problem; let them go out and get sponsors rather than relying on government aid."

"Owens is also unhappy with the appointment of Robyn Cooper as the Australian women's manager and coach. "Robyn doesn't have any experience at international level.

"She's never played at a World Championship. And when she was appointed she never bothered to contact the players. I don't like the way they take us for granted. They wrote to me and said they assumed I would be playing for them and I wrote back and told them they had assumed wrong. I told them I didn't like their attitude to the team and their attitude to me."

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Carol Owens turns down Team Australia (Photos © 2000 Fritz Borchert)