Two previous posts have discussed the missed opportunity to change the sport of swimming. Instead of a revolution Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) delivered more of the same old, same old. Instead of Vladimir Lenin we got Mary Francis Poppins. It is fine for me to be critical but legitimate criticism requires the critic to put forward an alternative; to say this is what was wrong and this is what should have been done instead. This post will attempt to address the question of what Gary Francis didn’t do but should have done.

Several years ago SNZ had a brilliant motto. It said, “Excellence in every pool”. I can already hear the laughter from Antares Place. “You can’t have excellence in every pool,” I hear them say. “Of course you have to be selective. Of course you have to be targeted,” they chortle away to themselves. And their belief in the policy of exclusion led SNZ to the formation of the famous Francis Points Table – invented by a Francis’ university friend at a cost of how much to Swimming New Zealand? I’d love to find out.

But of course, a policy of inclusion is needed, not a policy of exclusion as is common to both the old SNZ Centralised Training program and the new Francis Plan. “Excellence in every pool” is both possible and essential to the success of SNZ. Let’s deal with those two words separately – possible and essential.

It is possible because the business of SNZ is not all that big. Especially after the most recent eight years, the business is, at best, a medium size corporation. The table below shows a comparison of the size of SNZ with the size of some well-known New Zealand corporations.

So what are we to make of those figures? As you can see SNZ is a lot smaller than the supermarket owner, Progressive Enterprises. Smaller that Air New Zealand, McDonald’s, Fonterra and about the same employee base as Spark, BNZ and the Alliance meat company. It seems to me to be pretty obvious that if McDonald’s, the BNZ and Progressive can expect the same standard of service from all their outlets SNZ should be able to do the same. I’m sure the Countdown Store on Waiheke Island is expected to deliver the same customer service as their Remuera Branch. If they can do it why can’t SNZ? I’m certain the bank teller in BNZ Wairoa is as well trained and customer friendly as the one in BNZ North Shore. If the BNZ can do it why can’t SNZ? I had a Big Mac in Huntly a week ago and it was just as good, just as promptly delivered as in Queen Street, Auckland or in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia or even the leisurely US Virgin Islands. If McDonald’s can deliver their best around the world SNZ should be able to do the same thing in New Zealand. “Excellence in every pool” is possible. Dozens of organizations are doing it, or its equivalent, in businesses throughout the country every day. They don’t need some mathematical genius to calculate a table of which branch should perform well and which should be left to waste away. Only Gary Francis would do that. But then McDonald’s, BNZ and Progressive are well managed. The same cannot be said for SNZ.

Therein lies the rub. “Excellence in every pool” is possible but it requires good management. What Francis wants is the easy and lazy option – identify early talent and to hell with the “flowers, born to blush unseen”. Late developers may be hard work but are often the most rewarding. Remember the US study that found that all but four of the US Olympic swim team were late developers. The Francis’ tables would, most likely, have missed most of that team.

And so while dozens of New Zealand companies implement principles of “Excellence in every pool” everyday it is a strategy probably beyond SNZ. Fault for that lies in the inadequacy of Franicis, Johns and Cotterill. However, having established that “Excellence in every pool” is possible, why is it important? Why is it a hundred times more important than the Francis’ elitist policy of exclusion?

Well the first very practical reason is the vast number of New Zealand’s best athletes who come from small towns. Lydiard believed that the reason was because of their healthier, tougher lifestyle. Whatever the reason, the facts do seem to support the small-town theory. There is Jack Lovelock from Reefton, Peter Snell from Opunake, Murray Halberg from Eketahuna,  Toni Jeffs from Whakatane, Moss Burmester from Hastings, Lisa Carrington from Ohope Beach and Peter Burling from Tauranga. Representatives from small town New Zealand are simply not common in swimming. I hate to imagine the waste of talent that has occurred by the SNZ neglect of small towns. When was the last time anyone from Antares Place paid any attention to what was happening in the pool at Wairoa or Taumaranui or Waiouru. The problem with the Francis Plan is that the ridiculously academic points table is going to do nothing to capture the talent that abounds in rural New Zealand.

And finally the hard work required to ensure every New Zealander is offered the chance to excel is good in its own right. New Zealanders born outside the boundaries of the Capital or United Clubs are no less deserving of the chance to shine. SNZ has a duty to the least of these – not just the Wholefood’s Coffee Shop set. The arrogance of the SNZ Francis plan is nauseating in the extreme and it is bound to fail. “Excellence in every pool” is the future. Francis needs to wake up and then catch up.

Yesterday’s post described my immediate reaction to the Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) Wellington high performance meeting. I have now had time to consider what was said in more detail. And, if anything, the Francis’ plan gets worse by the minute. I guess there are many who would assume that would be my reaction and will dismiss it with a shrug and a, “What else would you expect?” It is therefore important to explain clearly why the plan is so bad. This post will attempt to provide that clarification.

The Francis’ plan is replacing the SNZ Centralised Training Centre policy. For eighteen years the policy of centralised training has been promoted by SNZ and HPSNZ as the key to international swimming success. Shows what they know. Lack of success has finally forced them into the realisation that the policy was flawed and to come up with something new – hence the Francis plan. It is off the point but the fact it took SNZ and HPSNZ eighteen years to realise the obvious flaws in centralised training is a criminal disgrace. Two generations of young committed swimmers’ lives were lost on an altar of their bigoted stupidity. And no one paid for their vandalism.

And now we have SNZ’s idea of a “new way”; a replacement for the centralised model. We have the Francis’ plan. I never write in capital letters but let me be very clear on this point.

“THE FRANCIS’ PLAN IS AS BAD AS THE CENTRALISED POLICY IT IS INTENDED TO REPLACE”

It will fail for many of the reasons the old policy failed. The inherent problems of the old policy remain and are on full display in the new Francis’ version. For example, in the old policy, swimmers were selected on the basis of speed and shipped off to Auckland for a swimming life of privilege. In the Francis’ plan swimmers are still going to be selected on the basis of speed. The only difference is their deportation to Auckland has been dropped. Now Francis plans to provide their life of privilege at their home program. The poison of arrogance is about to spread to every club in the country. At least in the old plan self-importance was contained in Antares Place. Now your club can be infected too. But you may be lucky. Francis may decide your local coach is no good, in which case, he told the meeting, he would recommend a flight to Australia or presumably to the, dishonestly retained, Millennium squad.

It is as though the brains trust in Antares Place decided that the old policy’s forced deportation was its singular weakness. Fix that and all would be well. Of course because the diagnosis was flawed the cure is equally faulty. I will attempt to highlight the faults.

The principle of selection on the basis of speed is defective. It damages those who miss out on selection and it damages those who make the selection times. The members of one group see themselves as failures and go off to surf or play water polo. Those who make the cut begin to see their life of privilege as a right and adopt a fatal arrogance. In other words the primary faults of the old policy remain unaddressed in the new.

I have mentioned before the inclusive team character of the swimmers and runners coached by Lydiard, Jelley and Schubert. John Walker, Dick Quax and Rod Dixon happily went running with me. There is not a lot of class selection there. That democracy was important. It boosted my ego no end and it kept the champions grounded. SNZ will have no idea what I’m talking about, but the concept of inclusion is important – especially in New Zealand. The exclusion inherent in the old centralised plan and in the new Francis’ plan is fatal.

I doubt there is a parent anywhere who wants their offspring to feel failures or to be subject to the insufferable arrogance of privilege. Both are wrong; both are unnecessary. Therefore my recommendation is that if Gary Francis comes knocking, tell him politely, no thank you and ask him to leave. There are many better ways than the Francis’ plan – ways that do not involve the risks of the Francis’ plan.

A fundamental problem in the old centralised plan was that it weakened the coaching and club infrastructure throughout New Zealand. As the message went out from SNZ that the best coaching was only available in the pool at Antares Place the effect on the rest of the country was catastrophic. Treated like second class citizens New Zealand coaches began to act the same way. At least the new Francis’ plan does not have a trip to Auckland as its first option. Now swimmers can stay in their home programs unless Gary Francis suspects the coach is not up to the job in which case Francis told us he would exercise the option of a trip to Australia or Auckland.

Lydiard or Jelley would never act that way. They were educators in the true sense of that word. They instructed and tutored trainee coaches and athletes. They deliberately strengthened the coaching infrastructure and competitive performance. How do I know? Because I was a direct beneficiary of the educational care offered by both men. They didn’t say to Alison or Toni that they should get another coach in Australia. No, they guided and directed me on how to be a better coach.

But a better example is the four times Olympic Gold Medallist, Lasse Viren. He lived and trained in the small Finnish town of Myrskyla, population 1992. That’s about half the size of a New Zealand town like Waipukurau. When Lydiard took over as the Finland national coach he didn’t recommend Viren shift to the big city but worked with his coach, Rolf Haikkola. Together they put together a program that won the 5,000 and 10,000 at two Olympic Games. The clear intent behind the Francis’ plan is to dismiss small town programs in favour of North Shore or Australia. And the result will further weaken swimming in New Zealand.

Francis showed his true colours when he proudly told us the story of recently sending a New Zealand swimmer to train in Australia and approving the plan to continue wasting money on the Centralised National Swim Program. My advice is – don’t trust him. Your swimmer could be next on his list of Australian swimming refugees.

The function and purpose of a SNZ elite program should be to strengthen swimming throughout the country; to create an environment where success is just as possible from Greymouth and Taumaranui as it is from United or Capital. Sadly that is not the way the new Francis’ plan is going to work. The arrogant “we know best” that killed eighteen years of the centralised policy is just as alive and well in the new Francis’ version. If this is the best SNZ have in mind – stay well away.

Thank you Swimming Wellington for posting a YouTube recording of the Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) high performance meeting. I have just finished watching the 90 minute film. There is a lot to take in. Initial impressions are not always best. However here is my first-off gut reaction.    

First, the 90 minutes seemed long on words and short of specifics. And in the words of the My Fair Lady song, “I’m so sick of words. Tell me no dreams. If you’re on fire, show me!” The problem highlighted by critics of the Trump deal with North Korea is the lack of specifics. When is the rogue state going to dismantle their bombs? How are they going to dismantle their nukes? Who is going to check that it has been done?

The same waffle was evident in Wellington. Lots of fine sounding aims and goals; lots of let’s all pull together; but no specifics of who, where and how. After five months I would have thought we deserved more meat on the bones that we got.

So what did we learn? Well the Francis’ approach is flawed at birth. That we know for sure and certain. He has based his future on a fanatical and amazing set of statistics. Some University boffin has provided Francis with what he believes are New Zealand time standards that mathematically measure a swimmer’s chances of success. FINA points have gone, welcome Francis points. But the error in all that is simple and obvious. People are not numbers. They mature at different ages. The Francis plan is going to miss late developers such as Toni Jeffs. There is no way Toni would have met any of the Francis points plan. Her bronze medals at World Short Course, Pan Pacific Games and two Commonwealth Games appear however to confirm her class. Alex Popov only learned to swim at eight and only began competing in freestyle when he was 18. The Francis plan would have missed Popov’s four Olympic Gold Medals. Peter Snell couldn’t win his school 800 meters. Francis’ tables of times would not target New Zealand’s best runner. A handful of countries have tried the Francis statistical approach and it has never worked.

The criticism Francis used to dismiss using FINA points was that points are theoretical but medals at the Games are specific and real. It beats me how the Francis points table is any less theoretical or any more practical than FINA. People are still people. Oh and one other thing, in all my years of close co-operation with world renowned coaches like Lydiard, Jelley and Schubert I have never once heard them select athletes of the basis of speed. You would never hear Jelley say, “You are too slow. Go away and run a four minute mile and then I will coach you.” They just don’t do it. That’s part of what makes Jelley great and is why Francis and SNZ will fail. I would never turn away a swimmer because of their speed. Do that and you are doomed to miss the next Jeffs, Popov and Snell. I certainly would not be coaching Eyad if speed was the measure. At 19 he could barely break a minute for 100m freestyle. He’s faster than that now and Auckland champion.

My third impression of the meeting was the obsession with money; Miskimmin’s money. Johns and Francis clearly admitted that their plans require the approval of HPSNZ. Without that approval there would be no money. So now we know. Miskimmin and the new guy, Scott, have the ultimate control of my swimmer’s career. For thirty pieces of silver SNZ have bought Johns and Francis body and soul. If anything was an incentive to stay well away from the Francis’ plan, the thought that Miskimmin and Scott have direct influence in its birth is more than enough.

A few years ago the CEO of Auckland Swimming, Brian Palmer, asked Arch Jelley how he would spend $1.3million on preparing athletes. Arch thought for a while and said, “$1.3 million. That’s a huge amount of money.” To hear this lot at the meeting, it was not nearly enough. Rowing got more. So did cycling. Poor us, we are being screwed.

My next impression refers more to the audience than Johns and Francis. If this audience is representative of swimming supporters in general we are in trouble. The negative tone of the questions was stunning. The only thing worse was the enthusiasm with which Johns and Francis stoked the disgruntled fires. One lady clearly thought any swimmer training overseas should be abandoned. That would have seen the end of Lauren Boyle, Gary Hurring, Anthony Mosse and Paul Kingsman. Another guy seemed to suggest that New Zealand coaches weren’t up to the job. Sadly, Gary Francis agreed with him. He told a story of recently recommending a swimmer move to Australia because his New Zealand coach did not have the skills to take him further. That story is bloody disgraceful. I know what Lydiard would have told the same swimmer. He would have said, “Go back to your home program and I will work with your coach to make you and him the best in the world.” And I guess, right there, is why Lydiard was middle distance coach of the millennium and Francis never will be.

I was disappointed that no one used the question time to ask why, with all this “evidence based approach”, was SNZ holding on to the Millennium training group. If clubs are one of the pillars of the future why is SNZ holding on to the policy of the past – especially when the evidence points to 20 years of failure.

And finally when the meeting ended the clip seemed to show Dave Crampton, editor of the Facebook NZSwim page, sprint forward to accost Steve Johns. If it was Crampton I got the distinct impression that Johns was not best pleased. The body language was negative to say the least. It was the best part of the meeting as Johns with All Black center skill evaded Crampton and fled to the far side of the room.

The Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) Facebook post announcing the meeting in Wellington to discuss the new Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager’s job ended with the following sentence.

It is extremely difficult to understand why we continue the call Gary Francis the “new” Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager. He was appointed in January 2018. Only in SNZ would five months be considered new. Even at SNZ whole careers have come and gone in less time. As a SNZ coach he is knocking on the door of veteran status. I suspect the adjective is a ruse to excuse the fact that $50,000 of our money has been spent on his wages and nothing has been done yet.

Of course, as of last night, nothing being done it not entirely true. SNZ has held a meeting. I have no idea what happened. Being in Wellington I doubt anything of importance. The Wellington Chairman, Mark Berge, calls himself “the consultant in jeans” – a title I find pretentious and unlikely to move the world forward. I notice another member of the audience was the founder of the NZSwim Facebook page, Dave Crampton. Berge and Crampton have never got on. For some reason Crampton calls Berge a bully. In my view that is probably because the arrogant leading the self-opinionated is never likely to end well. I have occasionally mused over what Crampton was like during his time at Massey University – the Che Guevara of Fitzherbert Avenue. He seems to have brought the same underwhelming presence to his new interest. I have little time or respect for individuals who text me every five minutes with pleas not to mention their name on Swimwatch. Their obvious fear of Cotterill and Johns is hardly the stuff of “shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.” They certainly contribute nothing to the sport of swimming.

There are important questions that should be asked in these “interactive” sessions. They are not asked by delegates at the Annual Meeting. It has been years since the delegates at a SNZ Annual Meeting have done their job. I have asked them a million times and have never received a reply. So let’s see if Gary Francis is any different. Here are eleven sample questions. We look forward to hearing the answers.

1. How did a dozen unqualified swimmers end up swimming in individual events at the Commonwealth Games? How do Johns and Francis justify what looks like blatant cheating?
2. What is SNZ’s explanation for the lies it told New Zealand about Lauren Boyle’s altitude camp sickness problems?
3. Why was Lyles made redundant after the Glasgow Games and then brought back to coach a second Commonwealth Games poor performance?
4. Why has it taken since January 2018 and $50,000 in wages to arrange the first meeting explaining Gary Francis’ position to New Zealand? Is this pace of change a permanent feature of life at Antares Place?
5. With all its negative consequences and with it being accepted that SNZ has no role in coaching swimming – why has SNZ persisted with coaching a small group of swimmers in Auckland when clubs could do the job better and without damaging elitist penalties?
6. Why has the sport’s income declined by 14.7% in eight years? What is being done to address the decay?
7. Why has the sport’s membership declined by 24.9% in eight years? What is being done to address the decay?
8. Why has the sport’s competitive membership declined by 8.1% in eight years? What is being done to address the decay?
9. Why has the number of clubs and coaches declined by 8.3% and 54.7% respectively in eight years? Is this deliberate SNZ policy?
10. Does the drop in government funding of 28.0% in eight years have anything to do with the sport’s poor international results? If so what is being done to address the decay? If that is not the reason why has government funding been cut? What is being done to address the decay?
11. Since State Insurance withdrew their sponsorship SNZ has been unable to find a replacement major sponsor. Why not?

For Gary’s benefit and to keep the data tidy the table showing the performance of SNZ since 2011 is shown below.

I’m told there are two or three further “interactive” sessions planned for other New Zealand towns. I imagine one of those will be Auckland. Perhaps then I will get a chance to ask why. For as sure as God made little green apples someone needs to. Or as the real Che Guevara put it, “someone who risks their skin to prove their platitudes.”

Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) will be presenting the first of a series of information update sessions in Wellington tonight. The primary purpose of the meeting is to communicate recent changes to the SNZ high performance programme. You would think that an event, aimed at improving communication, would be announced in good English. I have mentioned before Steve Johns’ inability to present the most basic text without including a dozen spelling or grammatical errors. This Facebook announcement is no exception.

The question Bruce Cotterill should have asked at the interview for CEO is, “Can you write in the English language?” If the answer was yes, SNZ could have a case of Resume padding on their hands. Complaining about something like this may seem petty. Indeed there is merit in the view that Steve Johns’ struggle with the English language is of no consequence. The problem is when the errors get in the way of the message; the thought that if all this stuff is wrong what else has the author missed; what else doesn’t he know.

Here is the SNZ announcement.

In 136 words Johns has made the following errors:

1. In the first line SNZ is spelt Swimming New Zealand. In the second line it is Swimming NZ and the third time the organization is mentioned it has become SNZ. Changing the title of the organization he works for is confusing and poor communication.
2. The word “myself” should be “me”. “Myself” is pretentious and grammatically incorrect.
3. The word “session” should be the plural “sessions”.
4. Johns has an annoying habit of repeating points for the sole purpose of sounding important. For example “informed and up to date” mean the same thing. So do “strategic update and priorities”. Strategic updates is included simply because using the word “strategic” is Johns’ idea of proper management talk. His boss, Bruce Cotterill, has the same bad habit.

We can only hope that the meeting in Wellington tonight communicates the purpose and direction of the Targeted Athlete & Coach High Performance Programme with more clarity than the Facebook announcement.

I would love to hear SNZ explain how a dozen unqualified swimmers ended up swimming in individual events at the Commonwealth Games. How do Johns and Francis justify what looked like blatant cheating? What is SNZ’s explanation for the lies it told about Boyle’s altitude camp sickness problems? Why was Lyles made redundant after the Glasgow Games and then brought back to coach a second Commonwealth Games poor performance? Why has it taken since January 2018 and $50,000 in wages to arrange the first meeting explaining Gary Francis’ position to New Zealand? Is this pace of change a permanent feature of life at Antares Place?