By David
After a decade of trying, the boss of New Zealand swimming, Jan Cameron, has finally managed to guide an athlete to a medal at the Pan Pacific Games; a bronze in the Woman’s 50 backstroke, won by Emily Thomas. The medal is both a wonderful achievement and an “about time” poor reward. For Emily Thomas it is a wonderful achievement. Nothing can or should detract from the success she has earned at a world class competition. It is not easy to win a medal of any type at a Pan Pacific Games. Without any qualification at all, Thomas’s performance is a very good one.
From a national point of view however one bronze medal is scant return for a decade of spending our tax dollars. For ten years swimming has spent millions on its administration and elite program. A return at the Pan Pacific Games of one bronze medal is not sufficient. In the commercial world one financial bronze medal for ten years of effort by some fine athlete employees and millions of dollars invested would have the shareholders demanding a change of management. Swimwatch may be the only voice saying as much but believe us we’re not the only ones thinking it.
Just as distressing as the results from Irvine, California is the spin fed to the New Zealand media. It seems that if you are not performing, then you have to spin. In New Zealand, the swimming may be a bit of a struggle but the spin is first class. Here is what we mean.
After the first morning’s heats Cameron was interviewed on Radio Sport. The journalist was interested in finding out why Moss Burmester had struggled in his heat of the 200 butterfly. Cameron clearly did not want the conversation to go down that path and instead said she was more interested in the six personal best times swum that morning. There are two things disturbing about that. Firstly, it is always important to examine the reasons why something has gone wrong. Why has a good swimmer like Moss Burmester struggled at this meet? Has he been training badly; is he injured or have the individuals responsible for his career been providing him with bad advice? Cameron needed to address these questions. The Radio Sport journalist should not have been as easily put off by an administrator trying to dodge the issue. And secondly the announcement of six personal best times was classic spin. The six PBs were true enough. What Cameron omitted to tell Radio Sport’s listeners was that there had been thirteen swims that morning. Therefore the teams PB ratio was a poor 46%. Any team recording less than 50% needs to look seriously at their program. Most teams aim to be in the 70% range.
The Coach appointed by Cameron to guide this team was reported as saying that “he’s not worried about comparisons with the world’s super powers.” What sort of nonsense is that? This Australian is the recipient of the best support New Zealand has to offer and he’s not interested in how we stack up against the world’s best? Perhaps we need someone who is interested in being compared with and beating Lochte, Phelps, Schmitt, Weir and their super power mates. I’ve stayed at Arthur Lydiard’s home on forty or fifty occasions. In that time I spent hours discussing training and sport. I just wish he was still alive to confirm my guarantee that the only thing he was interested in was being compared to the world’s best.
When Jane broke her first New Zealand Age Group record, the 100IM at a World Cup in Berlin, Arthur growled on the phone, “Don’t even submit the paperwork. Teach her that National Open records are the minimum standard.” I explained this to Jane and the forms were never submitted. New Zealand records are trumpeted as huge achievements these days. I guess that’s why Arthur was Arthur and this lot aren’t. Several weeks after Jane’s 100IM, a veteran Wellington administrator, Barbara Neish, thought we had overlooked the paperwork in error and submitted the forms on our behalf. Jane got her Age Group record but fortunately not before she had learned, it’s the big ones that matter.
Another very good swim in Irvine was Tash Hind’s 1.58.80 in the 200 freestyle final. Why on earth did team management report her effort as, “she was eighth in the final but third among Commonwealth countries” In reality she was seventh in the final and fourth among Commonwealth countries. Ahead of her were two Australians (Evans and Palmer) and a Canadian (Saumur). The claim of third in the Commonwealth is also misleading because it ignores the very good British swimmers who do not compete in the Pan Pacific Games. At least one of them (Carlin) has a time faster than 1.58.80. Is all this just more spin? Tash Hind’s swim was very good but it was not third in the Commonwealth and should not have been diminished by being reported as such.
Probably the most delightful item of reporting associated with New Zealand’s participation in this Pan Pacific Games was a profile on Scott Talbot-Cameron (that’s Cameron’s son and Pan Pac’s Assistant Coach) published in the New Zealand Herald just before the team left for the United States. In the report Scott tells us that his partner uses the wife of the New Zealand’s national rugby coach as her mentor to help her through the stress of living with a swimming coach. What on earth is all that about? It’s great PR spin but not much in the way of substance. The guy is a swimming coach, not a fighter pilot or brain surgeon. He works at a swimming pool, not in Tora Bora. Before I was a swim coach I was General Manager of a fair sized meat processing plant. Even that beats the life out of coaching for job stress. It all seems to be a case of ideas way above their station.
I was surprised to read that the New Zealand team of fourteen swimmers had a support crew of nine officials. Cameron was there plus four other coaches, a team manager, a sports scientist, a bio-mechanic and a massage therapist. What on earth did they all do? A bio-mechanic fiddling with swimmers strokes at this late stage may partially explain why we ended up with one rather lonely bronze medal. God knows how John Walker managed to run under 3.50 for a mile with only Arch Jelley’s telephone help from far off New Zealand. If the sport’s scientist and bio-mechanic were collecting stroke and time data from the meet, are all the Clubs in New Zealand going to have access to the data? We should – we paid for it. The appearance though is of an organization that does all the “trendy, flash” stuff but has no idea how to win a race. Certainly nine staff for a team of fourteen is way over the top.
Regular Swimwatch readers will know of our admiration of Melissa Ingram. Two years ago we watched her travel alone to World Cup meets in Moscow, Stockholm and Berlin. Not only did she win some mightily impressive swimming races she displayed the special character that is common in the world’s best swimmers. I’ve seen the American backstrokers Beisel and Pelton swim on a number of occasions. Neither could hold a candle to the Ingram I saw in Europe and yet both the Americans beat Ingram at the Pan Pacific Games. Why was that? I think she is over-prepared; she’s done too much speed training. Someone is making the same mistake I made preparing Toni Jeffs for the Barcelona Olympics. Ingram looks the same; too thin, too tired. The world’s best backstroker is not what she was two years ago, on her own in Europe. And that’s why we only won a solitary bronze medal.
