Becoming a competitive international athlete from a small country like New Zealand, miles away from anywhere, has its own set of difficulties. The normal solution is to spend years traveling to America or Europe gaining the experience needed. John Walker did it that way. So did Danyon Loader. And so is Paul Coll. Steve Adams went to America and stayed to pursue his trade in the NBA. Some of New Zealand’s best athletes have traveled so often that the Olympic Games is almost just another meet against opposition they have raced a hundred times before.

Occasionally an inexperienced novice can bounce into the Olympic Games and win. But normally that event is where tough, hardened professionals accept the spoils of victory. So, how does a swimmer become a tough, hardened professional? On tours like Mare Nostrum is the answer.

That’s why I was pleased to see Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) arrange for a team of twenty-seven swimmers compete in the Mare Nostrum swim series. Three meets over two weeks is probably not long enough but it is certainly better than a weekend dash across the Tasman for the New South Wales Championships. The trick for SNZ now is to keep doing that sort of thing every year, over and over again. Whether it is the World Cup or the American Series or Mare Nostrum, SNZ must keep pushing swimmers to perform. There is no point in going once, ticking that box and staying in New Zealand. Gaining experience is tougher than that. It requires repetition.

How did Aristotle put it? “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Sure, there will be some who fail the test of repetition – don’t worry about that. They would have failed anyway. Others though will thrive and grow to become Walker, Adams, Loader champions. SNZ, for all that’s good in swimming, keep doing what you have begun.

Even in this first short trip you can see the beginnings of those who will thrive and those who will struggle. Most will find the experience too tough and will go onto other things. That is not a problem. Panning for gold requires turning over a lot of stones.

Here is what I mean when I say, “the beginnings of those who will thrive and those who will struggle.” None of this is a criticism of SNZ or any one swimmer. The purpose of the trip is to learn. So here is what I took out of their experience.

Twenty-seven swimmers went on the trip. In three meets they swam 253 races. The average number of races per swimmer was 9 – or 3 races per two-day meet. The highest number of races swum in the series by one swimmer was 17 and the lowest was 4. That all seems pretty normal. An average of 1.5 races a day for each swimmer seems about right.

Not so good – in fact pretty awful, was the ratio of personal best times. Of the 253 races only 18 (7%) were in personal best times. On a trip to race the world’s best swimmers New Zealand swimmers have to do better than that. Four swimmers swam 1 PB each, four swimmers swam 2 PBs each and one swimmer swam 6 PBs. Eighteen swimmers (66%) failed to swim a PB. This is international competition. There is work to be done. A PB opportunity has been missed.

Another measure of importance in a trip like this is how does each swimmer respond to the stress of travel, hotels, and competition. Do they flag and swim slower and slower as the days go by, or do they respond to the competition and swim faster as they adapt well to the stimulus of international competition?

For example, two swimmers had PBs and swam the following patterns in the three meets. This is a result swimmers should look for on a trip like this. It shows two swimmers thriving in the environment. Whether they were first or last in their race does not matter. They were set a challenge and responded well. The potential is there to grow and win.  

PB	Monaco	Barcelona	Canet
25.89	26.27	25.95	25.84 PB
1.04.08	1.01.86 PB	1.01.76 PB	1.01.61 PB

 On the other hand, swimmers can wither and die. They find the whole experience awful. All they want to do is party, party, party or catch the plane home and sleep for a month. For example, here are another two swimmer’s patterns of races.

PB	Monaco	Barcelona	Canet
2.05.29	2.11.33	2.13.35	2.14.39
24.76	24.89	25.09	25.21

And finally, there are swimmers that are neither good nor bad. They drift through the series with some good swims and a few disasters. The problem for this group is international champions have to do better than average. A better job next time is needed. Here are two examples.

PB	Monaco	Barcelona	Canet
28.38	29.66	30.67	30.27
33.35	33.88	34.10	34.84

A close look at the tour results and here is how I would evaluate the group’s performance divided into three categories – Good, Average and Work to be Done.

Good	Average	Work to be Done	Total
6	15	6	27

And so well done SNZ and the swimmers who took part. It is a start to lifting the standard of swimming here in New Zealand. I look forward to the same again next year. Excellence is a habit.