New Zealand’s participation in the 2019 World Championship is now almost at half way. Has Swimming New Zealand (SNZ), in the words of its esteemed leader, taken “The opportunity to show the world how good they are?” Or is it more of the same, heat swims followed by an evening spent watching the world swim in championship finals. At this point it seems Steve Johns is right. He is showing the world how good we are. And it’s not pretty.

But with three days to go, who knows? Perhaps we should not rush to judgement.  After all who would have predicted the turnaround in Netball New Zealand’s fortunes in their world championship? Perhaps Steve Johns knows something that’s hidden from the rest of the world. In three days we will know.

Talking about netball I got an email yesterday that asked an interesting question about netball funding. This is what it said. “Is there some way that the netball team can receive retrospective payment for becoming world champions? Sport NZ throws a fair bit of cash around on some sports whose best members are nowhere near world class.”

I can’t imagine what sport the email’s author was referring too. Perhaps the chlorinated water dripping out of the email was a clue. In 2017 and 2018 Netball New Zealand received $2.4 million each year from Sport NZ and High Performance Sport New Zealand. That seems like a pretty generous payment. But it certainly needs to increase as a result of the world championship win. I would increase their payment by $1.5 million and spend $300,000 on keeping the coach, Noeline Taurua, and the $1.2 million balance on paying the sport’s top 12 players $100,000 each. It’s about time the players in Netball were properly rewarded. Like SNZ, Netball’s Head Office fat cats have been paid too much for too long.

The problem in New Zealand sport generally is the percentage of income paid to players compared to administration. Even good sports like rugby only pay 30% to their players. Swimming of course is New Zealand’s best example of what not to do. Steve Johns lives like a king while Daniel Hunter gets nothing. Netball is better than swimming but not much. If ever, “workers of the world unite” had relevance – it applies perfectly to New Zealand sport. Organisations like the ISL are showing us that the minimum acceptable ratio of player payments to administration is 50/50.

So did New Zealand swimming make progress on day four of the championship – Wednesday 24 July 2019?

Two of New Zealand’s more experienced swimmers were in the pool – Hunter and Ashby. Neither swimmer made a semi-final or final in their event. Hunter was 0.67s away from his PB. His ranking dropped from 33 to 37. Ashby was 0.37 slower than his personal best time. His ranking improved from 21 to 18. After two days the teams PB ratio is one PB from ten swims or 10%; not good at all.

Hunter was 1.01s (2.0%) behind qualifying for the semi-final.

Ashby was 0.2s (0.2%) behind qualifying for the final.

The ten swims by New Zealand swimmers on the first four days have averaged 1.7% behind the time required to progress to the next round.

The New Zealand record in the men’s 100m freestyle of 49.11, held by Daniel Hunter, would have also failed to qualify for the final. Ashby’s New Zealand record in the 200m IM of 1:59.24 would have qualified for the semi-final in 12^th place.

Wednesday 24 July