I’ve owned quite a few suits. My time in one of the world’s largest meat companies, Thomas Borthwick and Sons, the UK’s largest meat company, FMC and New Zealand’s largest animal by-products exporter, Colyer Watson, had suits as their corporate uniform. But three suits stand out. Let me tell you why.

The first was a tweed suit I wore, pretty much all the time, in Scotland. It was perfect for negotiating with Scottish farmers a price for their cattle and sheep. The last thing I wanted to look like was a pinstripe member of the London Stock Exchange come to steal Scotland’s hard-earned produce. My tweed suit and my family tartan kilt softened the farming community to my antipodean roots.

It’s off the subject of suits but I must tell you a story about my kilt. The kilt was made for me by a tailor in Edinburgh, from 8 yards of Hunting McInnes tartan cloth. The first time I wore the kilt was to a Burn’s Supper in Edinburgh. Before leaving I had been walking around the house telling Alison to “bring on the English”. I was more than ready to “send them home to think again”.

It was a cold, windy and snowing night. Part way over the Borland Glen our car slipped into a small ditch. I got out to push it back onto the road. As I pushed the wind and snow blew my new kilt up around my face. Alison wound down the driver’s window, looked back and said, “I bet you wish the English were here now.”

Being as Alison was the Scottish 1500m track champion and representative she had the resume to get away with her cheek. There is a time and place though.

Anyway, back to the tweed suit. I’m pretty sure my farming acceptance, founded on that suit, saved the London Knightsbridge Head Office of FMC several million dollars in the price paid for Scottish cattle and sheep. What did Napoleon say, “A soldier is the uniform he wears.”

My second favourite was a pinstripe suit made for me by a small tailoring business in Sunningdale west of London. This suit was a real Knightsbridge number, ideal for a London Head Office business meeting, perfect for a pint in the Belgravia Horse & Groom, and made for an evening in the Palm Beach Casino in Berkley Square. And before you ask, that suit did all those things, many times.

The cloth was incredible. Merino wool as soft as a feather with a wide, very thin pinstripe made of gold. Yes, real 18 karat gold thread. I know that sounds more like an expensive Christmas tree, but it wasn’t. In fact, the suit was understated in an expensive sort of way.

The most memorable moment for this suit came at a new meat plant we built in Perth, Scotland. I invited two Marks & Spenser’s executives from London to visit the new facility with the idea of selling it as a source of meat for their 254 stores. It was a special day. I chose my pinstripe suit for the occasion. When they arrived, we discussed the plant’s superior hygiene. I boasted that the plant was so clean I could kill five sheep and not a drop of blood would get onto my suit.

On the slaughter floor I kick-started the conveyer that brought live sheep up to the killing point. For some reason the conveyer failed to stop and live sheep were being ejected into the processing area. I was desperately trying to grab sheep. By the time we got things under control my gold pinstripe suit was covered in mud and Scottish sheep poo. Fortunately, the visitors from London thought it was hilarious and approved us as a supplier.  

But my all-time favorite suit was made for me by an apprentice tailor at Rembrandt Suits in Courtney Place, Wellington, New Zealand. The apprentice happened to be my brother, Kim. What a talent. The cloth was dark grey Merino with a narrow cream pinstripe. The comfort, the style, the cut and the hand-stitching were straight out of Gieves & Hawkes, No.1 Savile Row, London – but dare I say, better.

I wore the suit Kim made me on my first day at work after finishing university and for many years after that. It came with me from Wellington management trainee to New Product’s Manager for Borthwick’s world-wide group in London.

The suit’s most memorable moment came after we shipped the first container of chilled lamb between New Zealand and the UK. Prior to that all New Zealand lamb was shipped frozen. Today chilled lamb is a multi-million-dollar business. But back then it was cutting edge technology.

We sold the first container to Marks & Spenser. They decided to use their Marble Arch store to control the public sale. The New Zealand ambassador (Hugh Watt) heard about the new product and asked me to arrange a visit to the store.

Dressed in Kim’s suit, I arrived at New Zealand House. The ambassador’s car (license plate NZ1) took us to Marble Arch. Soon we were admiring the meat counter while I explained how we had begun with one carcass by air to this shipment by sea of a full container.

Hugh Watt noticed a little old lady pause at the New Zealand chilled lamb counter and select a pack of leg steaks. The ambassador asked whether she had bought the lamb earlier in the week.

“Oh yes,” said the lady.

“You enjoyed it then?” inquired Watt.

Oh, it is not for me. It’s for my Pekinese,” she said.

There is a swimming side to the chilled lamb story. The foreman who packed that first container of chilled lamb at the Waingawa freezing works, Russell Geange, has also been the Head Coach at the Carterton Swimming Club for years. Duncan Laing, who began his working life in the Waitara works, used to say the best coaches always begin in a New Zealand meat works. Some in white gumboots and others in a pinstripe suit.  

Over and over again I have made the point that the dysfunction of New Zealand sport is the result of Sport New Zealand policies initiated by Peter Miskimmin and carried on by Raelene Castle. And this week we have another example.

Just to be clear it is not the sports that have a problem. It is policies prepared by bureaucrats in Wellington. They do not work. They cause damage. They kill people. Centralised training for example. If East Germany and Soviet Russia could not make that policy work why on earth did Miskimmin think that his Level 1 office in the Harbour City Centre would be any different. And why does Raelene Castle hang on to the same expensive failure from the same expensive office. They say intelligence is the ability to learn. Wow, with this lot you have to wonder.

But back to this week’s news.

In December 2014 Simon Plumb reported the following on Stuff News.

 Dysfunction deepens at Swimming New Zealand, with half the high-performance coaching staff set to be axed in yet another overhaul of the Crown’s beleaguered Olympic investment. Gary Hurring and Kelly Bentley, who run the Wellington high-performance system, are the other two coaches affected.

And that was it. A few weeks later Gary Hurring was gone. The coaching hub system had been dismantled and swimming was in a far worse position than when Miskimmin first put his greasy mits on a successful sport. The loss of Gary Hurring was especially harsh. He is a superb coach and was cast adrift in the most heartless manner imaginable. I wonder how many swimming champions were lost when Swimming New Zealand rode roughshod over Hurring’s career.   

However, not content with the destruction of swimming, Sport New Zealand decided it would do the same thing to cycling. This time though they not only destroyed the sport, they killed one of its best competitors.

Here is what Zoe George reported in Stuff in December 2021

The upheaval at Cycling New Zealand continues, as the organisation closes four major development performance hubs, putting the future of upcoming cyclists in doubt.

Performance hub staff were told of the decision to close the doors last week. The hubs in Invercargill, Christchurch, Cambridge and Auckland are the ones to close. 

The Southern Hub, based at the SIT Velodrome, produced more than 15 national champions lead coach Sid Cumming. Cumming said the hub has been successful in developing talent and is “very disappointed” by the closures. “I thought we were doing a good job and all the reports say we were doing a good job,” he said.

So, there we have it. Two different sports. Two different journalists. Seven years apart almost to the day. The same story almost word for word. Now tell me Sport New Zealand knows what it is doing. Their policy “is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.” Their problem is this time their nothing killed a fine New Zealander.

It is acutely relevant to ask, whose turn will it be in 2027; rowing or snow sports or athletics – who knows? What 14-year-old, still in high school, is being groomed by Sport New Zealand to die in an effort to satisfy their policy demands, to justify their obscene money, to meet their always impossible and always selfish goals.

Some of us listened in horror to the German Court cases that followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall. But are we all that different? Was Peter Miskimmin’s policy any better? Does Raelene Castle know what her organisation is doing? Do they care?

Here, for example is a story of an East German shot-put champion, Heidi Krieger. All I have done is change the location to New Zealand, change her name to Olive and the drugs supplied by East Germany to Sport New Zealand’s money.  

Olive is eleven when she discovers a fun pastime: athletics. Things like that don’t go unnoticed in New Zealand. A selection and training system refined to perfection monitors school children to determine who’s good at what sport. Shot-put and discus throw are the two little Olive might be famous for one day.

Olive knows the deal: being successful in sports equals being successful in life. And so, she practices and practices until at fourteen she’s admitted to the athletics centralised program for talented children, managed by the of powerful sports club in Auckland, which is funded by Sport New Zealand. Olive practices weightlifting, discus throw, and shot-put every day. It’s tough, but her coach provides money that means she can rent an apartment, buy food and a car and go out with her friends once a week. Follow Sport New Zealand’s rules and she will even receive a $20,000 Christmas bonus. Her life is bought and paid for by the state. Harder and harder they push. Their demands that she must save Athletics New Zealand are overwhelming

At 21, Olive wins the gold medal for shot-put at the Paris Olympic Games. She throws the shot 22.01 meters. Olive is a success. But Olive will soon be gone. After years of depression, uncertainty, and suicidal tendencies, she has decided to end it all.

Well done Sport New Zealand. Well done Raelene Castle.   

I was in a North Shore Hospital clinic yesterday when a patient came by and asked for my opinion on the Sun Yang drug saga. “I don’t know,” was my rather lame answer. I am conflicted between dismissing a guy who has been caught for taking banned substances and wondering whether his bottle smashing act may have been the last desperate act of a man provoked beyond belief.

I have no time for drug cheats – none at all. Sun Yang is a drug cheat from a country with a bad history of cheating. But I have also witnessed drug agencies screw over athletes in ways that might provoke me to stop at Mitre10 and buy a hammer.

Take for example the case of my daughter, Jane, who was tested after the National Championships in Dunedin. She signed and kept the receipt of her sample number 12345. A month later the Sydney testing laboratory sent her the results of the test. Sample number 67890 had been tested and was clear. I contacted the New Zealand drug agency and asked the obvious question. Jane’s sample was 12345 and the sample tested was 67890. What was going on? Oh, don’t worry I was told. The New Zealand drug agency had lost the paperwork in transporting the sample to Australia. A new number was allocated but rest assured it was Jane’s sample. When a person’s sporting life is at stake, that incompetence is not good enough.

And consider the case of Trent Bray whose sample lay in the sun, unrefrigerated, in the Sydney testing facility for a month over Christmas before being tested. That was an injustice beyond belief. The sample should have been thrown away and a new test performed. In that case I would have gladly bought Trent a hammer. It would have been a cheaper and more just reaction than the thousands he spent clearing his name.

Having said all that, in Sun Yang’s case his past history combined with the reputation of swimming in China would lead me to believe the guy’s a crook. Certainly for the good of the sport Sun Yang’s case should have been dealt with far sooner. The drug spectacle that has distracted the Championships is as much the fault of WADA’s incompetence as it is of Sun Yang.

And, in case you have forgotten, remember there is a Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) link to WADA’s stunning ineptitude. SNZ might struggle in the pool but will not be left out when it comes to incompetence. One of the leading lights of WADA – the SNZ link – is SNZ President, Dr Dave Gerrard.

So what happened in Korea today? Did New Zealand swimming make progress on day six of the championship – Friday 26 July 2019?

New Zealand had a big day in the pool – Ashby (100 fly), Galyer (200 back), Pickett (50 free), Thomas (800 free) and the men’s 4×200 free relay team of Hunter, Clareburt, Stanley and Reid were involved in the competition.

The 4×200 men’s relay team swam 7:13.06 and broke the New Zealand record for the event. The new time however failed to make the final. Their ranking improved from 22 to 14. A good result but still an indication of how far there is to go.

Ashby failed to make the semi-final in the 100 fly. He recorded a personal best time of 53.73. His ranking improved from 42 to 36. A PB is always a good result.

Galyer qualified 8^th for the semi-final. She was 0.21s away from her personal best time. Her ranking improved from 19 to 8. New Zealand’s first semi-finalist. It is an open question as to whether American-nurtured Galyer’s success reflects the different policies followed by a diversified American system and the centralised control imposed on New Zealand by Cameron and Miskimmin. Diversification works.

Pickett failed to make the semi-final. He was 38^th, 0.25s away from his personal best time. His ranking stayed the same at 38^th.

Thomas failed to make the semi-final. She was 21^st, 3.34s away from her personal best time. Her ranking improved from 24 to 21.

After today’s heats the teams PB ratio is 3 PBs (Ashby 100 fly, men’s 4×200 relay and Galyer 100 back) from 15 swims or 20%; not good at all.

The relay team was 4.61s (1.1%) behind qualifying for the final.

Ashby was 1.29s (2.4%) behind qualifying for the final.

Galyer qualified for the semi-final.

Pickett was 0.38s (1.7%) behind qualifying for the final.

Thomas was 14.95s (2.9%) behind qualifying for the final.

Excluding Galyer who has qualified for the semi-final, the fifteen swims by New Zealand swimmers to date have averaged 1.8% behind the time required to progress to the next round. If the world stood still and New Zealand swimming progressed at the 3% rate recommended by ASCA we are 7 months behind making finals in international competition. We know the world is not going to stand still waiting for New Zealand to catch up. I guess that means the only question is – are we going to improve at the ASCA 3% rate or faster?

The new New Zealand record in the men’s 4x200m freestyle of 7:13.06 failed to qualify for the final.

The New Zealand record in the men’s 50m freestyle of 22.27 would have been 20^th in the heats and still not qualified for the final.

The New Zealand record in the women’s 800m freestyle of 8:17.65 would have qualified 3^rd for the final. Lauren Boyle could swim a bit.

The New Zealand record in the men’s 100m butterfly of 51.61 would have qualified 5^th for the semi-final.

The New Zealand record in the women’s 200m backstroke of 2:09.13 would have qualified 4^th for the semi-final.

Friday 26 July

Name	Event	PB	Swum	Ranking	Swum
ASHBY	100 Fly	53.75	53.73	42	36
GALYER	200m Back	2:09.77	2:09.98	19	8
PICKETT	50m Free	22.34	22.59	38	38
THOMAS	800m Free	8:41.31	8:44.65	24	21
RELAY MEN’S	4x200m Free	7:13.83	7:13.06	22	14