Today I have witnessed the good and the not so good of international sport. Let’s begin with the good. Eyad and I had finished morning training and were leaving the Millennium Pool. We had to walk around the back of the pool to where the car was parked. It is fairly deserted down there. Just car parks, some scraggy pine trees and a shot put circle. I have frequently felt sorry for the shot put types; relegated to the back of the car park while their track mates have their all-weather facility at the top of the hill. Given that arguably the best female and male shot-putters in the world are from New Zealand it seemed strange that their place of work should appear to be such an after-thought.

As we walked past the shot put facility I noticed a girl taking a practice throw. The bloody thing went for miles. “Wow,” I said to Eyad, “That girl is good at shot put.” I looked more closely. She certainly is good at shot put. Dame Valerie Adams was with her coach, working away, preparing for the Commonwealth Games.

We stopped and watched as they went about their work. I was reminded of that line from Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” – “Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife.” Here was the best in the world, no bugles, no drums, out the back of the Millennium Pool, just her and her coach quietly preparing to represent her country. So much that’s good about the best of New Zealand sport was on show this morning. No corporate plans or discounted cash flows, just Dame Valerie Adams and her coach, among the pine trees, on their own, plying their trade, continuing in the tradition of Arch Jelley, Arthur Lydiard and Rusty Robertson. I was immensely privileged to have seen a champion at work. I understood a little bit more about why the girl in the trees was the best in the world.

I had a similar experience to this morning once before. When I was coaching in Florida I had an apartment in the Delray Beach Racquet Club. Shortly after moving in I was walking home and heard extremely loud whacks of someone playing tennis on one of the private courts. The noise was so loud I opened the door and went in to see what was happening. To my amazement I discovered it was Serena and Venus Williams. I watched them practice for twenty minutes and was stunned. On television you get no idea of the power of their game. Mere mortals had no chance of returning their shots. Whenever I hear tennis commentators criticise either of the William’s sisters I remember that evening in Florida. The best in the world are pretty bloody amazing.

Not so uplifting was a message I received this morning. This is what it said.

At first I thought my correspondent must have made a mistake. Surely Swimming New Zealand could book a training camp without screwing it up. I knew this was the organisation that had announced medley qualifying conditions and withdrawn them a week before the event. This is the same Swimming New Zealand that announced an Oceania team only to have half the swimmers pull out a week later. And this was the outfit that published eleven pages of Commonwealth Games qualifying rules and when only two swimmers met the cut selected anyone who could blow bubbles under the water to swim in relays. Perhaps they had messed up the Commonwealth Games’ camp. With this lot anything is possible.

And so I did some research. Yes, sure enough the facts are about right. As I understand it Swimming New Zealand added a team of five or six swimmers to the well-organized para camp in Noosa. As we all know Swimming New Zealand fiddled the rules and picked a dozen or so relay swimmers. New Zealand now had more swimmers than Noosa bookings. It seems that Noosa were not able to change the booking and so Swimming New Zealand decided to split the team. The boys and para swimmers have gone to Noosa and the girls are training in New Zealand.

What a circus. I understand Gary Francis was left to sort out the mess. He seems to have made the best of a terrible deal. The other day I asked what Gary Francis had been doing for five weeks. Why was the Targeted Athlete and Coach job not making progress? Well now we know. He has been running around putting out fires, and from what I can see, doing a good job of making the best of a ridiculously bad deal.

New Zealand’s two most public swimming competitions are the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games. It is simply amazing that on $150,000 plus a year Steve Johns or someone could not organise a pre-games training camp properly. Gary Francis clearly had no option but to divide the team. But it is not good preparation for a Commonwealth Games. It’s not good preparation for the Porirua Chocolate Fish Carnival.   They couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery.

 Recommendation Ten of the 2012 Moller Report required Swimming New Zealand to prepare a “Whole of Sport Plan”. The Plan must include:

Five years ago Swimming New Zealand prepared the required “Whole of Sport Plan”. It contained 22 items that Swimming New Zealand pompously called “Strategic Goals”. I thought it would be interesting to do a five year report on how well the current Board of Swimming New Zealand has performed against their plan; they prepared it, but have they done it? Have they been good boys and girls or have they earned a homework detention? I would love to report that the sport is bounding along from one successful peak to another. But facts are facts. How has Cotterill’s organisation done in comparison to its own goals?

Strategic Goal One: “Increase the number of Kiwis actively participating in swimming programs.”

The table below shows what has actually happened:

So that’s not good. Sadly population changes make the numbers even worse. In 2011 New Zealand’s population was 4,384.000. By 2017 it had increased by 322,000 (7%) to 4,706,000. And so in a period when the population went up, swimming’s share of the population went down by 29.3%.

Strategic Goal Two: An aligned National & regional competition structure that supports the development, conditioning and medalling of NZ swimmers.

The reality of this goal is stunningly inexplicable. The table below shows the competition structure that used to apply in New Zealand and what it has become today.   

In 2011 it was possible for a swimmer to begin racing at a Regional Championship and progress to Age Groups and Opens in the same “peak” period. That is no longer possible. The meets are way too far apart. The program has been decided by someone who has no idea of what they are doing. When the Commonwealth Games are added, the schedule becomes even worse. World swimming has known for years that National Championships or Trials are best scheduled very close to an international commitment. Just check the USA and Australia. In New Zealand the Federation runs the Open Championships three months after the Games have ended. Why?

Strategic Goal Three: To have a NZ coaching system that is internationally recognised.

I have been fortunate enough to coach in the United Kingdom, the United States, the Virgin Islands, Saudi Arabia and New Zealand. That experience has left me with some appreciation of the coaching qualifications that are recognized around the world. I imagine it will surprise no one to hear that Swimming New Zealand’s bronze, silver and gold coaching certificates are of almost no value outside New Zealand. Because of this I decided to use the American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA) training program. I have followed their program all the way to their International Level Five qualification. With that certificate I can go anywhere and have my qualifications understood and accepted.

If I was advising Swimming New Zealand I would have recommended that they arrange for all New Zealand coaches to be trained by ASCA. That would provide New Zealand coaches with the world’s premiere training and with certificates that have international currency. ASCA can provide coaching benefits that, no matter how hard they try, Swimming New Zealand will never be able to achieve.

Strategic Goal Four: To attract, develop, retain and reward a talented and committed base of volunteers.  

The volunteer base has declined by 46 (2.5%) since 2011. This data is shown in the table below.

Strategic Goal Five: The AquaBlacks have a reputation as a (sic) solid performers on the international stage.

Only the masters of fake news at Antares Place would claim Swimming New Zealand has run a successful international program. Sport New Zealand has punished the poor performance by reducing its financial support. Cotterill said he doesn’t understand the reason. That’s sad because the rest of the world knows it’s because the program he manages can’t win a swimming race. For some time Boyle and Snyders masked the program’s intrinsic problems. But eventually even they fled to the United States and Australia. The following tables give some idea of the international mess created by Cotterill and his Board.

Government Performance Funding

Commonwealth Games Individual Qualifiers

Commonwealth Games Results

World Championship Results

Strategic Goal Six: Performances of New Zealand swimmers improve consistently at all levels.

Cotterill told us recently that, “An astonishing 49 New Zealand swimming records were broken between July 2016 – June 2017, including six open records and forty three age group records.” The truth is that, after going back as far as I can, I was unable to find a year in which fewer national records “at all levels” were broken.

Strategic Goal Seven: All athletes, coaches and performance staff aspire to become part of the SNZs High Performance Team environment.

The Millennium High Performance Program.has been steadily falling apart. Even Swimming New Zealand has given up. An email from Gary Francis announced the change. He said, “Swimming New Zealand are not looking to seek a replacement for Jerry, or anyone in a similar role for the present time. The HP centre at AUT Millennium will now become the National Training Centre.”

Strategic Goal Eight: The Swimming New Zealand Team is respected for its clarity, leadership and strong direction.

The decision to appoint a Targeted Athlete and Coach Manager gave hope that things at Swimming New Zealand were about to take a new and better management direction. Sadly recent events indicate that instead of Gary Francis changing Swimming New Zealand, the organisation has changed Gary Francis. The hope for strong leadership died.

Strategic Goal Nine: Commercial partners receiving value, feel part of swimming and willing to maintain and increase their investment in swimming.

Since State Insurance ended its Swimming New Zealand sponsorship Cotterill and Johns have been unable to find a main sponsor for the sport. The table below shows a comparison of Swimming New Zealand’s income from grants and sponsorship since the Whole of Sport Plan said the organisation intended to see partners increase their investment.

Strategic Goal Ten: To grow our revenue to provide a secure future for swimming. Reduced level of organisational risk.

There are two parts to this goal. The first is to grow Swimming New Zealand’s income. That hasn’t happened. The table below shows that income has collapsed by 14.7%.

And the second part is to reduce the organisations risk by making it more financially independent. The table below shows what has actually happened.

The good news is the business has gone from being 21.8% self-sufficient in 2011 to 37.7% in 2017. That improved self-sufficiency has been achieved by a million dollars decrease in grants and sponsorship and massive increases in user pays contributions (up by 60%) and meet entry fees (up by 207%).

Strategic Goal Eleven: To attract, develop and retain quality people.

Retaining staff has not been a Swimming New Zealand strong point. In ten years the sport has had three CEOs and nine Head Coaches. Even Cotterill acknowledged the chaos of staff turnover. In his 2017 Annual Report he said:

Strategic Goal Thirteen: Work with Regions and RST’s to develop a 30 year blueprint for infrastructure requirements for swimming.

I have no idea whether anything has been done about preparing an infrastructure plan. I doubt it. It’s hard to drain the swamp when you are up to your armpits in alligators.

Strategic Goal Fourteen: To have in place standard policies,  processes and systems.

This Swimming New Zealand certainly has done. There are more procedures now for entering a meet or being selected for a team or running a club than in any country I have worked. Swimming New Zealand has become a bureaucrat’s dream. It’s easier to escape from North Korea than it is to get into a New Zealand swim team.

Conclusion:

This post is not a negative criticism of Swimming New Zealand. It is not fake news or spin. It is simply an account of the organisation’s performance compared to the goals Cotterill set for himself. It only becomes negative when we see that in the pragmatic measures of participation, performance and finance Swimming New Zealand is in a terrifying downward spiral.

The home of Comet Values, the old Macrae Baths

Swimwatch published a story recently called “Comet Club Values”. (http://www.swimwatch.net/2018/03/comet-club-values.html). The post was popular with the crew that once swam for the club. Rosemary even suggested a reunion. I’d be a starter for that event. While reminiscing about the good old days is nostalgic and wonderful fun I wanted to consider the wider implications of the Comet Club approach to sport.

While Comet Club demonstrated the importance of honest principles, it was not alone. Many good and successful people have similar values. For example Duncan Laing, Gary Hurring, Lincoln Hurring, Judith Wright, Gwen Ryan, Arthur Lydiard, Arch Jelley, John Walker, Mark Schubert, Trevor Nichols, Noel Hardgrave-Booth and Jeannie and Geoff Sibun have or had Comet values.

Swimming New Zealand does not have Comet values; not in any way shape or form. In Antares Place it’s all about corporate plans and strategic policy initiatives going forward. You might not believe me. Here then is a quote from Bruce Cotterill.

I love those guys who add “going forward” to the end of every sentence. Where else can you go? And what “club and regional capability” means I have no idea. I doubt that anyone else does either; including Bruce Cotterill. However Cotterill and Johns do make one good point. They tell me that two measures of federation success are performance and participation. I would argue that Comet values produce better results in both performance and participation than anything Cotterill’s high priorities going forward will ever achieve. Let me explain.

First let’s consider participation. For several years in the 1960s, every Friday afternoon during the school holidays, I sat at my coach’s kitchen table and did the entries for the Comet club night. As a result I was very aware that our club had 527 members. That’s one club in 1960s Gisborne, when the population of the entire town was only 28,500. Two people in every 100 Gisborne residents were members of our club.

New Zealand today has a population of 4,749,598. To match Comet’s participation Cotterill and Johns should be leading a federation of 85,493 swimmers. In 2018 Swimming New Zealand’s actually competitive and non-competitive membership is 11,812; a mere 73,000 members short. The table below shows a breakdown of the competitive and non-competitive numbers by region together with the number of clubs and the average club size. At the bottom of the table Comet’s 1960’s data is also included.

How is it that Comet Club on its own could attract more members than the current Northland, Taranaki and Nelson Marlborough regions? Why is it that, with all Swimming New Zealand’s corporate strategies and Whole of Sport Plans, Beth Meade’s club could outperform Cotterill and Johns’ average club membership size by 740%?

Because Beth Meade ran a club with values – that’s why. In my previous post I described values as “a love of sport, a respect for the rules, of fun, of strong independence, of dignity and good manners.” Beth’s values infected all those she touched.

In my opinion Cotterill and Johns don’t do that. They don’t love swimming. When was the last time you saw either of them at a Level Three competition or a Junior League? Never is the answer. They are too busy sending Peter Miskimmin their latest horizontal analysis of the income from operations statement. And their respect for the rules is suspect. Look at the way Swimming New Zealand manipulated the rules in order to sign Lauren Boyles’ record certificate or the frantic deals done when they realized only two swimmers had qualified for the Commonwealth Games. And there is not much in the way of strong independence. Swimming New Zealand can’t go to the loo without asking Peter Miskimmin for permission. And finally good manners demands more of leaders than to impose medley qualifying times and withdraw them at the last minute or to promise the membership a full explanation of the reason for the loss of Sport New Zealand funding and then never reporting the result. Broken promises are not good manners.

Rank and file members instantly recognize a callous disregard for common decency. Members know when they don’t count; when corporate affairs rule; when the grass roots are left to grow weeds. In my opinion that culture is where the sport is at and is why Comet had 527 members and Cotterill and Johns’ average 71.

The second measure of health used by Cotterill and Johns is performance; how good are the sport’s best swimmers? You would think that, with $13million spent on high performance swimming in the last decade; this aspect of the sport would be very strong. Sadly no. Here again a lack of values has been the cause of untold damage. New Zealanders don’t do elite sport best the Cotterill and Johns’ way. You cannot buy Olympic success. The New Zealand formula for victory is based on common touch values; the way Tom Walsh has become a world champion, the way Lydiard prepared Snell, Halberg and Magee and the way Jelley coached John Walker.

And it worked back in Comet days as well. Here is a report from a 1967 Gisborne Photo News. Greg has gone on to coach the Comet Club for many years. Remember in those days the Gisborne pool was closed in the winter. But Beth and Comet’s values more than compensated

I am very conscious that Swimwatch has been accused of too much negative criticism. That opinion is not without merit. Criticism, on these pages, has been strident and frequent. My defence is only that there is much to be strident about. The sport is badly managed. The sport is struggling. No one enjoys being negative. However I am acutely aware that bad things happen when good people say nothing. If criticism is justified then it must be aired. To stay silent would only encourage the steady decline that has characterised recent New Zealand swimming history.

But today I am really annoyed. I am insulted beyond belief. You see, in my email today I received a copy of the Swimming New Zealand Freestyler newsletter. To call it lightweight and useless would be high praise. When it arrives I see it announced in my inbox as, “SNZ Newsletter March 2018 Best viewed in your browser”. I am filled with anticipation. Perhaps this time Cotterill, or the Board or Johns or some office bureaucrat will include some news in the newsletter. Perhaps someone will discuss real swimming issues. Just maybe Swimming New Zealand will use the Newsletter to involve the membership in the management of the sport.

But, no, it never happens. All we get is meaningless froth and bubble. And the sad fact is there is a lot of important news to report just now.

Probably most important is the following story published today on the SwimVortex website.

https://www.swimvortex.com/athlete-reps-send-fina-safe-sport-message-facilities-rules-do-count-when-wrs-are-set/

SwimVortex reveals that they recently asked the FINA Athletes’ Committee the following question.

Effectively what the SwimVortex question is asking is, was Swimming New Zealand wrong to sign Lauren Boyle’s 1500m record application and was FINA at fault in approving an improperly submitted application?

The Athletes’ Committee reply was clear. They said;

You would think that Swimming New Zealand would be interested in that reply. After all it does mean that the leaders of the Athletes’ Committee, people of the stature of Penny Heyns, Camelia Potec, Kirsty Coventry and Aaron Peirsol, disagree with Swimming New Zealand and FINA over their declaration that facility rules governing the dimensions of pools and athlete safety do not apply when a world record is set.

It may have taken three years but world opinion is beginning to agree that both FINA and Swimming New Zealand were wrong to overlook the safety rule. In my opinion the callous disregard Bret Layton showed for the truth, for the rules and for member’s safety is being exposed. Swimming New Zealand should get onto the right side of history and use their newsletter to correct a very bad mistake. Or as an athlete, I know well, said to me today, “Don’t the grey old bastards recognise their day is done.”

The newsletter should also be telling us about progress with the Gary Francis’ Targeted Athlete and Coach position. Remember how Steve Johns teased us about the new position and then a month later the appointment of Gary Francis was announced and then, on the 9 February 2018, Francis sent out an email that said;

That was five weeks ago and we’ve heard nothing since. Darwin’s theory of evolution took less time than the Francis and Johns’ version. When are these meetings going to be held? Are they going to be held? What has Francis been doing for five weeks?

While I’m on the subject of Gary Francis let me send a message directly to him. If he wants to discuss my swimmer’s training and competition plans then he asks me first. I hope he would not wander off to Raumati and start discussing training with their swimmers without clearing it with Jon Winter first. Well I’m no different. You clear it with me before you discuss training or competition with any swimmer of mine.

And finally the newsletter should be used to clarify two classic Swimming New Zealand failures. First is the “on-again-off-again” medley qualifying rule. I’m betting that ridiculous condition probably cost the sport 50 odd members; swimmers who qualified in an individual event but couldn’t do the medley time and have decided to give the whole thing away as a waste of time. I agree that medley training is an important part of swimming but to make it a condition of entering a championship is a quick and certain way to destroy the sport. Can you imagine Tom Walsh being required to run a mile in under 4.30 before entering the shot put?

The Swimming New Zealand rule has now been withdrawn. However it is too late. The damage has been done. We need to know who had the idea in the first place. Who was responsible and have they been called to account for the damage they caused? My guess is it will be a typical Swimming New Zealand cover-up. Sweep it under the carpet and it never happened.

And second how did the Oceania team fiasco ever happen. The team got selected then half of them refused to go and the team got unselected and finally a new team was announced. What a circus. Getting into a New Zealand team these days is more bureaucratically complex than getting out of the old Soviet Union. There are long lists and short lists, “A” times and “B” times. The qualifying conditions for the Commonwealth Games occupied eleven pages. And then only two swimmers made the cut so Swimming New Zealand picked whoever they wanted anyway. In the first Oceania Championships I by-passed Swimming New Zealand and entered directly with the meet organizers. That was probably a bit too casual but at least we all turned up to swim.

There is a lot that the Swimming New Zealand newsletter could be used to explain. There is even more that the newsletter should be used to explain.

 Alison wins the 1962 Canterbury primary school sports on Lancaster Park

 Some fun and strange events can occur when people fail to recognize talented people. Here are a few examples.

Lizzie Simmonds

Simmonds represented Great Britain at backstroke in both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. In 2012 she was fourth in the 200 metres. She also represented Great Britain in the FINA World Championships, the European championships, and England in the Commonwealth Games. She was European champion in the 200-metre backstroke. Certainly she can swim a bit.

Here is a delightful tweet she recently posted of a conversation she had recently with a lady aqua-jogger.

David Wilkie

Wilkie could also swim a bit. He remains the only swimmer to hold British, American, Commonwealth, European, World and Olympic swimming titles at the same time. Here is a lovely story posted on twitter by the SwimVortex website.

Mary Stewart

Stewart was a British runner who competed in the 1976 Olympic Games and won gold medals in the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games. Here is a story she told just before leaving to compete in the Montreal Olympic Games.

Alison Wright

Wright was the 1500 meters national champion of New Zealand, Scotland and the United Kingdom (indoors). She represented New Zealand at the 1978 Commonwealth Games and the Great Britain at several international events. After she finished international track competition she kept fit by running around the steep hills in Dunedin. Here is a story she tells about one of those runs

Arthur Lydiard

Lydiard was one of the outstanding athletics’ coaches of all time. He is credited with popularizing the sport of running. Lydiard coached a New Zealand’s golden era in world track. Murray Halberg, Peter Snell and Barry Magee won medals at the 1960 Olympics in Rome and Snell won two medals in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. Here is a story that happened on the Monday after Snell set two world records on Lancaster Park.

Arthur Lydiard

After coaching successfully in New Zealand, Lydiard was recruited to be the Head Track coach in, running mad, Finland. He met and began dating Eira Lehtonen, She would later become his wife. Here is a story Lydiard told to illustrate how popular track athletics is in Finland.

Sir Peter Snell

Snell is the only male track athlete since 1920 to win the 800 and 1500 meters at the same Olympics. Snell is best known for his three Olympic and two Commonwealth Games gold medals and the several world records. When my daughter, Jane, went to Washington State University on a swimming scholarship Jane and her mother, Alison, were invited to dinner by the widow of Snell’s professor. During dinner they were told this lovely story.

Gary Hurring

Hurring  won a gold medal at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in the men’s 200 backstroke. He won a silver in the same event at the 1978 World Championships. At the 1984 Olympics he just missed medals in both backstroke events finishing fourth in the 100m and fifth in the 200m. I recruited Gary to coach our team in Wellington. Of course everyone was hugely excited about the arrival of such a famous New Zealand name.