Almost everything I dislike in a human being comes in one, gift-wrapped parcel, called Michael Noel James Hosking IV. The New Zealand broadcaster is way too right-wing for my taste. New Zealand can do without his reactionary opinions. In my view he is arrogant and self-important. His constant need to appear on the pages of doctor’s surgery cheap magazines and his spikey hair style are objectionable and cheap. I even signed the petition to have TV1 remove him from the Leaders Debate before the last New Zealand general election. I read articles written by him to reinforce my opinion that this must not be the country we ever become.

You can imagine therefore my shock when I read the Hosking column in this today’s NZ Herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12191222 and found myself agreeing with his every word. Shock is barely adequate to describe my reaction. Astonishment mixed with horror is a better description. So what caused this visceral reaction? Here is a much abridged summary of what Hosking had to say.

Regular Swimwatch readers will notice an unnerving similarity between this Hosking article and several Swimwatch posts. Probably my only negative thought about what Hosking has to say is his opinion that, “Elite sport is not about fun and giving it a go, it’s about winning.” In my experience it is perfectly possible “to have fun and give it a go” and win at the same time. The most severe coaches, me included, do occasionally smile.

What Hosking does not do – probably because he has limited practical involvement in sport and does not know – is shoot the blame for New Zealand’s sporting malaise at the guilty individual. That is the guy at the top, Peter Miskimmin, the CEO of Sport NZ. Miskimmin created the bureaucratic environment where all that “touchy-feely” stuff prospers. And Reviews are a staple item in the Miskimmin business diet. In swimming Miskimmin ordered three Reviews before he got the one he wanted. The problems Hosking rightly identifies are not going to change without New Zealand sport getting rid of Peter Miskimmin. It may take a while but eventually even Hosking will come around to seeing that’s true.

I can’t imagine Hosking was ever a serious participant in competitive sport. That hair cut is way too expensive to get wet in a pool or messed up in the bottom of a rugby ruck. My guess is he was probably a library monitor while the rest of us were out running the school cross country. His Wikipedia page says only that, “Hosking attended Linwood College” in the period when sporting or academic triumphs were likely. Besides Hosking has never seemed to me to be the sort of person who would fail to mention sporting successes if they did exist.

However, in this NZ Herald article, Hosking has identified a genuine problem. Elite sport is a tough world. It can be fun but it can’t be easy. It is not for babies. One of the serious short-comings in Miskimmin’s world is the power he has given to trendy bureaucrats. Just look at Cotterill, Johns and Francis in swimming. In my opinion, they are trendy, opinionated and ill-informed. They know nothing about the coalface of the sport; nothing about digging for coal, so they emphasise stuff at the fringes of sport, things like feelings and political correctness. They know nothing about swimming 100×100 on 1.25 so they focus on the fringe matters where everyone is an expert.

So thank you Michael Noel James Hosking IV. Your article does nothing to make me like you anymore but you sure got the measure of the problems in sport in New Zealand just now and have hopefully made it better by bringing it to public attention.