COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The father and former coach of Olympic champion runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen has been charged with abusing one of his other children, police said Monday, escalating an ongoing conflict involving one of Norway's most prominent sporting families.
Ingebrigtsen won the 1,500-meter race at the Tokyo Olympics and has emerged as one of Europe's biggest track-and-field stars after being coached since childhood by his father Gjert Ingebrigtsen. But he and two of his brothers — who are also top-level runners — previously accused their father of using “physical violence and threats as part of our upbringing."
Norwegian police launched an investigation into Gjert Ingebrigtsen after that, and on Monday charged him with having physically and mentally abused another of his younger children. The indictment, which has been seen by The Associated Press, said the alleged abuse took place between 2018 and early 2022 and included threats, coercion and hitting his child in the face with a towel on at least one occasion.
Monday’s charges did not relate to the 23-year-old Jakob Ingebrigtsen or his older brothers Henrik and Filip, the three prominent runners. Police did not disclose the identity of the child.
If found guilty, Gjert Ingebrigtsen faces up to six years in prison. No date for a trial has been set.
Terese Braut Våge, head of police in southeastern Norway, told The Associated Press that cases involving five other alleged victims had been dismissed “on the basis of the evidence” and in one case because of a statute of limitations.
Gjert Ingebrigtsen's lawyer John Christian Elden said his 58-year-old client “disagrees with the presentation of the events” and “consequently does not admit criminal guilt.”
Gjert Ingebrigtsen was named the Norwegian sports coach of the year in 2018 after Jakob, Henrik and Filip all won medals at major events that year. The family had also been the subject of a TV documentary series, “Team Ingebregtsen,” that was aired by public broadcaster NRK for five season between 2016-21 leading up to the Tokyo Olympics.
But on Oct. 19 last year, the three brothers published an op-ed in Norwegian newspaper VG detailing their father's behavior and said he “had been very aggressive and controlling” and violent and abusive during their childhoods.
They said “the same aggression and physical punishment struck again” two years ago toward someone else, and that was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
The three brothers broke ties with their father and Gjert Ingebrigtsen has since started coaching another Norwegian runner, Narve Gilje Nordås. However, Tore Øvrebø, the head of the organization that oversees Olympic sports in Norway, said Ingebrigtsen would not be allowed to be part of the Norwegian staff at the Paris Games this summer. He was also denied an accreditation for the 2023 world championships in Budapest, where Jakob won gold in the 5,000 meters.
AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
FILE - From left, brothers Filip Ingebrigtsen, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and Henrik Ingebrigtsen, of Norway, react after competing in the men's 5000 meter final at the World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, on Sept. 30, 2019. Father of Ingebrigtsen brothers is charged with abuse of “one of his minor children,” lawyer says. (AP Photo/Nick Didlick, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Wednesday agreed to hold two campaign debates in June and September — the first on June 27 hosted by CNN and the second on Sept. 10 hosted by ABC — setting the stage for the first presidential face-off in just weeks.
The quick agreement on the timetable to meet followed the Democrat's announcement that he will not participate in fall presidential debates sponsored by the nonpartisan commission that has organized them for more than three decades. Biden's campaign instead proposed that media outlets directly organize the debates with the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees, with the first to be held in late June and the second in September before early voting begins. Trump, in a post on his Truth Social site, said he was “Ready and Willing to Debate” Biden at the proposed times.
Hours later, Biden said he accepted an invitation from CNN to a debate on June 27, adding, “Over to you, Donald. As you said: anywhere, anytime, any place.” Trump said on Truth Social he'd "be there, adding: “Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!”
And soon after they agreed to the second debate on ABC. Trump said on Truth Social it was his “great honor" to accept the CNN and ABC debates.
Biden said he, too, had received and accepted the invitations. “Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation. I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years,” he wrote on X.
Still, the two sides appeared to be hold some differences on key questions of how to organize the debates, including agreeing on moderators and rules — some of the very questions that prompted the formation of the Commission on Presidential Debates in 1987.
Biden's campaign had proposed excluding third-party candidates, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from the debates outright. Under the debate commission’s rules, Kennedy or other third-party candidates could qualify if they secured ballot access sufficient to claim 270 Electoral Votes and polled at 15% or higher in a selection of national polls.
CNN said that the debate would be held in its Atlanta studios and that “no audience will be present.” It said moderators and other details would be announced later. The network held open the door to Kennedy's participation if he or any other candidate met polling and ballot access requirements similar to the commission's.
As recently as Wednesday morning, Trump expressed his desire for a large live audience.
“I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds - That’s only because he doesn’t get them,” Trump said. “Just tell me when, I’ll be there.”
Trump has been pushing for more debates and earlier debates, arguing voters should be able to see the two men face off well before early voting begins in September. He has repeatedly said he will debate Biden “anytime, anywhere, any place,” even proposing the two men face off outside the Manhattan courthouse where he is currently on criminal trial in a hush money case. He also has been taunting Biden with an empty lectern at some of his rallies.
Biden’s campaign has long held a grudge against the nonpartisan commission for failing to evenly apply its rules during the 2020 Biden-Trump matchups — most notably when it didn’t enforce its COVID-19 testing rules on Trump and his entourage — and Biden’s team has held talks with television networks and some Republicans about ways to circumvent the commission’s grip on presidential debates.
Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon on Wednesday sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates to say that Biden’s campaign objected to the fall dates selected by the commission, which come after some Americans begin to vote, repeating a complaint also voiced by the Trump campaign. She also voiced frustrations over the rule violations and the commission's insistence on holding the debates before a live audience.
“The debates should be conducted for the benefit of the American voters, watching on television and at home — not as entertainment for an in-person audience with raucous or disruptive partisans and donors," she said. ”As was the case with the original televised debates in 1960, a television studio with just the candidates and moderators is a better, more cost-efficient way to proceed: focused solely on the interests of voters."
There was little love lost for the commission as well from Trump, who objected to technical issues at his first debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was upset after a debate with Biden was canceled in 2020 after the Republican came down with COVID-19. The Republican National Committee had already promised not to work with commission on the 2024 contests.
The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
The Trump campaign issued a statement on May 1 that objected to the scheduled debates by the commission, saying that the schedule “begins AFTER early voting” and that “this is unacceptable” because voters deserve to hear from the candidates before ballots are cast.
O’Malley Dillon said the debates "should be one-on-one, allowing voters to compare the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College – and not squandering debate time on candidates with no prospect of becoming President.”
Kennedy, in a statement, said “Presidents Trump and Biden are colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70% say they do not want. They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win. Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.”
The Biden campaign also proposed that the Biden-Trump debates this year be hosted by “any broadcast organization that hosted a Republican Primary debate in 2016 in which Donald Trump participated, and a Democratic primary debate in 2020 in which President Biden participated — so neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable: if both candidates have previously debated on their airwaves, then neither could object to such venue."
Those criteria would eliminate Fox News, which did not host a Democratic primary debate in 2020, and potentially NBC News, which did not host a GOP one in 2016 — though its corporate affiliates CNBC and Telmundo were co-hosts of one debate each that year.
In teeing up the debates, both Biden and Trump traded barbs on social media — each claiming victory the last time they faced-off in 2020.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate,' Biden said in a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. "Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal.”
Trump, for his part, said Biden was the “WORST debater I have ever faced - He can’t put two sentences together!”
The Democrat suggested that the two candidates could pick some dates, taking a dig at Trump’s ongoing New York hush money trial by noting that the Republican is “free on Wednesdays,” the usual day off in the trial.
The president first indicated he would be willing to debate Trump during an interview with the radio host Howard Stern last month, telling him that “I am, somewhere. I don’t know when. But I’m happy to debate him.”
Biden indicated again last week that he was preparing to debate, telling reporters as he was leaving a White House event: “Set it up.”
Former President Donald Trump, standing with defense attorney Todd Blanche, speaks after a court session outside his trial at Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, Pool)
In this combination photo, President Joe Biden speaks May 2, 2024, in Wilmington, N.C., left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, May 1, 2024, in Waukesha, Wis. President Joe Biden says he won’t participate in the campaign debates sponsored by a nonpartisan commission, instead challenging Republican Donald Trump to a pair of debates. Biden said Wednesday that Trump lost two debates to him in 2020 and since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Biden proposes debating Trump twice. (AP Photo)
President Joe Biden speaks at the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies' 30th annual gala, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
