In my experience the New Zealand main stream media adheres to pretty professional standards of journalism. But occasionally events occur that let the side down. One of those events is happening now. This lynch-mob trial of Anthony Peden is way out of line. Every night TV One reporter, Abbey Wilson, breathlessly bursts onto our screen with another salacious bit of gossip. Every night her report ends with the soap teaser that there is more to come. “Just watch tomorrow night.”

Wilson is charged with reporting the news, not broadcasting her trip into porn fiction. I dislike the impression of Wilson searching for a shot of Peden running through the Cycling NZ car park with his pants around his ankles, chugging a pint of Speights, chasing Sarah Ulmer on a bike. I’m sure Wilson was the lead cycling reporter at the Brisbane Commonwealth Games. Her vindictive reporting of the Peden resignation makes me wonder if something happened at the Games that pissed-off Wilson and this is her revenge moment.

Did Paden tell her to bugger-off? Did he turn her down for an interview? Did he refuse her invitation to dinner? Did he decline her offer to skinny-dip in the Optus Aquatic Centre? I have no idea. But the way she has gone after the guy is not normal; certainly it falls short of the standards we have a right to expect from main stream journalists. If Wilson wants to report like the National Enquirer, she should work for the National Enquirer.

This weekend the excellent “Herald on Sunday” reporter, Andrew Alderson, brought some balance into the discussion.  He reported there were claims that the coach was being “hung out to dry”. The “Herald on Sunday”, he said, was told allegations against Peden are “a smear campaign” to destroy Anthony by people close to him.

Alderson’ source claimed “tall poppy syndrome” and jealousy” had seen many disgruntled ex-employees and former riders try to destroy Peden’s credibility.

To be honest Alderson’s report sounds believable to me. Until concrete proof is found to the contrary my advice to Abbey Wilson would be to keep her mouth shut. Because, as sure as God made little green apples, we are going to hear from a hundred more bandwagon jumpers in the next few weeks.

Typical of what we should expect is a report today by Ollie Ritchie for Newshub. His report begins:

Well that must rate as the world’s least fair and balanced introduction. Without a shred of proof and before any investigation Peden is accused and convicted of a “bullying and toxic” culture. And why? Because some cyclist was dropped from the squad and has decided now’s her chance to get even.

Except, according to Ritchie, McKenzie wasn’t dropped from the squad – According to Ollie Ritchie she was “dumped from the squad because she was deemed overweight.” You see when your only interest is sensational gossip “dumped for being overweight” is way better than “dropped for being too slow.”

And then we get some details. McKenzie’s best example of “ugly memories.of bullying and negativity” was Peden saying “skin folds, skin folds, skin folds” a couple of times a week. Well if that’s too much for the poor petal I’m delighted we are no longer paying her to be a professional athlete. McKenzie sounds like a spoilt brat who has taken advantage of a gullible journalist.

I’ve had examples of athletes who needed to lose weight. When Rhi Jeffrey came to New Zealand she was too heavy. We turned her weight loss into a competition between me and her. We would weigh ourselves each week and compare the weight lost. Inevitably Rhi won. She is after all and Olympic gold medal competitor. My way might have been more subtle than Peden. That probably means Peden is more honest. Certainly mentioning skin folds is not screaming “you fat pig” at dear Steph.

If this post sounds supportive of Peden I accept the charge. It is because, like most coaches, I have been on the rough end of swimmer’s gossip and it is not nice. For example on a trip to the Mare Nostrum meets in Europe one of my swimmers got sick. I took her to the doctor. He prescribed some antibiotics and told us to take the first meet carefully, but she should be fine for the second meet in Canet.

The day before the Barcelona meet, I told her I had scratched her from her longer races but had left her in the 50-meter freestyle. She could swim that event, but only if she felt up to the task. She said she wanted to swim, and I agreed. She swam. Her time was slower than her best but under the circumstances was a good swim – an indication of better things to come. The swimmer however, could not handle the modest result. She announced that she had spoken to her father and was going back to Florida the following morning. And that’s what she did.

The rest of the team swam the other meets in Canet and Monte Carlo. By the time we got home, the swimmer’s mother had filed a formal complaint with the Florida Gold Coast Swimming Association, claiming I had neglected her daughter’s ill health and had forced her to swim the 50-meter freestyle. It was rubbish, of course. Her complaint also said that I had sent the sick swimmer down to the shallow end of the Barcelona pool to practice turns. That lie was easily rebutted. The Barcelona pool doesn’t have a shallow end; it’s the same depth all over. Florida Gold Coast dismissed the complaint,

More serious was a complaint made by a female swimmer who complained to Swimming NZ that I had recommended female swimmers get pregnant to take training advantage of the early pregnancy increase in blood volume. I was then said to have told the female simmers to have an abortion just before the National Championships. The story was obviously made up but had its origins in a report that the East Germans had considered that procedure. Swimming New Zealand sensing a chance to hang me out to dry took the complaint seriously. The complaint and the swimmer’s credibility fell apart when the same swimmer published on social media topless photographs of her mate getting changed in the National Championships changing rooms. It seems like not even Swimming New Zealand could get around that honesty and IQ problem.

And so in the case of Anthony Peden I think it would be best for us to abide by the tenet “innocent until proven guilty”. Because it seems to me we are a very long way from reaching anything like that level of proof.

Obviously I have no idea what’s going on at the national cycling centre. The high performance sprint coach, Anthony Peden, says the environment is not to his liking. Peden’s bosses and High Performance Sport NZ (HPSNZ) bureaucrats hint at all sorts of scandal. But what we do know is yet another world class coach has come, seen and left a Miskimmin national facility.

It’s becoming a race to the bottom. None of the Miskimmin centralised jewels can go for longer than five minutes without some scandal plunging them into crisis. Cycling New Zealand type chaos has been around for years and shows no signs of going away. It is a common flaw of the Miskimmin plan. Building a successful Olympic career is difficult enough without the distraction of another coach or administrator leaving under a liquor, sex or assault laden cloud. I have no idea whether the endless gossip generated by the Miskimmin programs is accurate. But, true or not, one does need to ask, what is it about Miskimmin’s centralised training centres that encourages such disruption?

There clearly is a characteristic in New Zealand national training centres that promotes turmoil. I believe Miskimmin has funded organisations of such a size that he has been able to select managers in his own image. Have you noticed the similarities between the CEO of cycling, rowing and swimming? Like Miskimmin they all babble away in the most polished management speak. They can’t wait to plan their next “going forward” moment. Smooth and practiced, in the modified words of My Fair Lady they, “ooze charm from every pore, They oil their way around the floor.”

None of us should be surprised when the rough and tough men and women that become world class coaches see through the superficial froth of spineless administrators. I’m certainly not saying that all good coaches lead blameless lives. I’m just certain that there is an inevitable conflict between coaching steak and marshmallows dipped in latté administrators. At least that seems to be the experience of centralised training centres in New Zealand.

I certainly wouldn’t bet the house on what some athlete tells one of their goody-two-shoes administrators. Athletes are shockingly unreliable witnesses. Look at Moss Burmester. When he retired he was full of condemnation for the national training centre and Jan Cameron’s dictatorship. When Jan died the same guy was publically extolling her every virtue, even many she did not possess. So what does Moss Burmester think? I doubt that anyone, including Burmester, really knows.

And as for the yelling, bullying accusation. There is not an international coach alive who hasn’t had to face that complaint. It is the default position for every athlete that gets a dose of what Coach Genardi Touretski used to call, “the electric shock treatment”. International sport is a tough game, If you are a petal who doesn’t like the rough and tumble involved, find something else to do. You are not going to win at cycling, swimming or rowing. The problem now is that these cossetted and pampered athletes find a sympathetic ear with marshmallow administrators and play on the fact with an endless stream of sob-stories.

Of course I’m not supporting outright abuse. There is no place for that anywhere. But there must be a balance between doing what’s right and giving into pathetic appeals from athletes and administrators. They need to harden up. In the world of MIskimmin’s centralised training there is no balance. Self-opinionated athletes and administrators rule unchecked.

In swimming a good Australian coach Mark Regan got pushed out because they said he was too aggressive. He had won the support of Lauren Boyle and coached her to a World Championship medal but the marshmallows said he had to go. This is how the NZ Herald described what went on.

Then Lyles came and left. I’d have made the same decision as the marshmallows in his case; so no criticism from me there. What was ridiculous, in my opinion, was bringing him back to coach a worse result in Brisbane than he had in Glasgow four years earlier.

Then the American, Jerry Olszewski, was in New Zealand for five minutes before he’d seen enough and disappeared back to Arizona. He said there were family health issues. I’m picking his own mental health was close to the top of that list.

In rowing, the world’s most successful coach, Dick Tonks said he was “finished” with Rowing NZ and left to coach in Canada. The marshmallows said he was too tough and accused him of treason for coaching a couple of Chinese rowers. We should not forget the Radio NZ interview with Noel Donaldson, the Australian that Miskimmin employed to replace Dick Tonks. He spent ten minutes telling New Zealand that our rowers needed an easier training regime than the Tonks’ program. We hear the same rubbish in swimming all the time.

In cycling Justin Grace gave up coaching here and was snapped up by the French and then the British cycling programs. A hugely patriotic and talented New Zealander, Grace could not tolerate the crap that spewed out of Sport NZ any longer. The fact that Grace trained promising young Kiwi sprinters in his garage in Auckland was not nearly posh enough for Miskimmin’s marshmallows. Grace has had the last laugh. In Rio his UK cyclists won four gold medals.

And now we have Anthony Peden’s exit from cycling. Wild allegations of bullying, drinking and sex head the TV 6.00 o’clock news; all the normal stuff that haunts the life of many successful coaches.

So there you have six examples of coaches who have left a Miskimmin centralized facility under some sort of controversy, all out of step except Miskimmin and his marshmallows. It might be time for Miskimmin to address the culture he fosters. In my view the cause of many of these problems lies at Miskimmin’s door. I was interested in the interview with the new HPSNZ chief executive, Michael Scott. No wonder he got the job when Baumann left. He’s full of marshmallow. I am however concerned that he is expecting “in depth answers” in the Peden investigation. With sex being one of the charges I’m wondering what he expects to hear.

I wanted to take a minute to explain the thought behind the first paragraph of the last Swimwatch post. Here is what the paragraph said.

The paragraph describes the cynical use of money to manipulate sports federations into accepting Sport NZ’s commitment to centralised national training facilities. There are two ways of looking at the proposition of possible illegality. Many will dismiss the notion as fanciful nonsense. Others might at least wonder if it has some merit. But, before considering the legal position, it is worthwhile discussing the amazing arrogance that underpins Miskimmin’s policy on swimming, cycling and rowing training. Along with his mates at High Performance Sport New Zealand Miskimmin has formulated an obsession with centralised national training centres. The swimming facility at the Millennium Institute was the first of its type; encouraged by the promotion the idea got from Jan Cameron.

Since then Miskimmin has extended the centralised concept into rowing, cycling and canoeing. He tried to snare athletics but the independence, resistance and success of Willis, Walsh and Adams saw his grand design founder.

The real question arising from Miskimmin insistence that sports adopt his centralised training policy is – who the hell is Miskimmin to decide what training works best in swimming? What knowledge does he have on the subject? None that I know of. And yet two or three generations of young New Zealander swimmers have committed themselves to a concept designed by a hockey player; an ignorant novice of things swimming. What a pathetic joke.

But is Sport NZ’s promotion of centralised programs illegal? It may be is the answer. Why?

Well, I do not like the smell of bribery. The general definition of bribery is the giving or receiving of something of value in exchange for some kind of influence or action in return. It includes offering, giving or receiving any item of value to influence the actions of an official.

I doubt that there can be any argument Sport NZ required swimming to adopt a centralised training model. Miskimmin was fully committed to the idea. It extended his personal influence, justified generous wage increases and massaged his ego. Here is how the commitment of Sport NZ to centralised training was reported on Stuff.

And so I think we can safely say there was a demand from the Miskimmin gang that sports “focus on the national training centre”. We can say that because Sport NZ’s representatives told us that was their intention. In fact they said money would be used to “force” compliance.

Critical to the suggestion that the demand amounted to a bribe however is the way the demand was viewed by Swimming New Zealand. Did the behaviour of Swimming New Zealand reflect compliance with the demand and was the amount of money paid to Swimming New Zealand linked to compliance with the policy? In other words did Sport NZ give and did Swimming New Zealand receive funding in exchange for the action of consistently supporting and following the Sport NZ’s centralised training plans? Did Sport NZ offer and pay funds in order to influence the actions and obtain the compliance of Swimming New Zealand officials?

There is a mountain of evidence that supports the view that Sport NZ demands rank first, last and always in the minds of Swimming New Zealand officials. Johns’ reaction to a recent cut in funding was to say, “We need to make sure as much funding as possible is put into the swimmers, into the national training centre.” He is clearly admitting that firing good coaches and other cuts are acceptable but, for the love of God, make sure that the Sport NZ national training centre gets all the money it needs.

Bruce Cotterill, the Swimming New Zealand Chairman, was even more transparently servile in acknowledging the influence of Sport NZ’s money. This is his reaction reported in the NZ Herald.

The reaction of Johns and Cotterill clearly suggest that their behaviour and decisions are being controlled by the demands of Sport NZ. Miskimmin says to Cotterill, “Jump” and Cotterill says, “How high?” Sport NZ demanded that Swimming New Zealand pursue a policy of centralised training and Cotterill and Johns have bent over backwards to comply.

Sport NZ even imposed an element of sanction on their supply of money. Until recently any athlete not training in the high performance centre was denied Sport NZ funding. Swimmers in the American University system or in Australia were punished for their decision. And Swimming New Zealand thought that was just fine.

But why so much obedience? Is it because Cotterill and Johns thought it through and decided centralised training is accepted around the world as the best way to Olympic glory. I doubt that could be true. Most countries have discarded centralised training. New Zealand has tried it for twenty years with no success. So why did they cling to a failing, discredited policy?

Money of course. And that’s why it seems like a bribe. Sport NZ’s function should be to financially support Swimming New Zealand’s plans. But they don’t. Instead Sport NZ set the policy and provides financial support based on swimming following a predetermined Sport NZ plan. If that is the case it appears to meet the definition of a bribe.

I’d love to be able to prove the suspicion of bribery. This is what the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961 Section 105 (2) says.

What a lovely thought – Miskimmin, Johns and Cotterill sharing a room for 7 years in the Tongariro/Rangipo Prison. From the road it looks like a pleasant spot to do some male bonding.