Eyad is a member of the World Refugee Team about to compete in the World Swimming Championships. For five weeks Swimming New Zealand has allowed Eyad to join the New Zealand swimmers, first on the Mare Nostrum circuit and then in their Samorín, X-Bionic Sphere staging camp in Bratislava, Slovakia. Eyad and I are deeply grateful to Swimming New Zealand for including Eyad. Their assistance represents the very best in sport. Especially for a swimmer who has had a difficult start to his swimming career.

Tomorrow Eyad and the New Zealand swimmers end their training camp preparation. They will travel by bus the 194kms to Budapest. The Championships begin there on Saturday, 18 June. So how has the training camp gone?

Eyad tells me it could not have been better. The food, the accommodation, the swimming facilities, the weather, the team management and the coaches have been first class. We decided Eyad should do two weeks of steady, aerobic swimming after completing the Mare Nostrum circuit. We could have kept going with sprint training, but after talking to Coach Arch Jelley decided that for Eyad, two weeks of recovery was a better plan. The old expression, “keep the tiger in the tank” seemed to be the best option. And so, for two weeks, Eyad swam easy sets like 40×100 or 5×400 at a steady recovery pace. The swimming equivalent, you might say, of running around the Waitakere Ranges, here in Auckland.      

But before continuing with Eyad’s story I should mention that in just over one month Arch will have his 100^th birthday. His advice is as sound as ever. His contribution to questions such as: “do we keep sprinting or do we have a few weeks of aerobic swimming?” is invaluable. For forty years he has directed me past hundreds of training obstacles. Thank you Arch.

Only in the past week has Eyad gone back to speed training, culminating in a 50m butterfly trial this morning. We will only know if the decision to hold Eyad back has worked when he swims in the Championships. However so far, so good. His best time for 50m LC butterfly prior to this morning was 25.89. In the trial today he swam 25.40. Progress.

Eyad’s camp has not all been hard graft. He has an uncle who lives in Vienna. Each Sunday Eyad has been picked up and taken to Vienna to have lunch with his uncle’s family. Last Sunday Eyad was allowed to drive the 100kms. Sure enough, he ended up driving on the New Zealand side of the road. A reminder from his uncle got him back on the “right”.

Tomorrow then, Eyad and the New Zealand team head off for the culmination of this trip. Eyad will return to New Zealand a very different athlete from the one who left New Zealand six weeks ago. Thank you to the International and New Zealand Olympic Committees, FINA and Swimming New Zealand for making the opportunity possible. Well done to Eyad on taking advantage of his good fortune.

And God speed to Eyad and the other swimmers from New Zealand through next week’s World Championships.

I’ve spent quite some time in the United States. I graduated from high school there. I played for the school’s American football team. I stood while my class recited the Pledge of Allegiance, or my team sang the National Anthem. But one thing I never did was clasp my chest through either ritual. It wasn’t my Pledge of Allegiance or National Anthem. Besides New Zealanders are not into those jingoistic displays of patriotism. More than once I struggled to reconcile their brash heart holding with the three years it took them to join the rest of the world resisting the Nazis. And even then, Japan had to give them a hurry-up. Was all that heart holding patriotism just for show? When it came down to a real scrap with Hitler, or Israel’s genocide in Palestine, or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, all the heart holding meant nothing.

After some time in New Zealand, I went back to the United States to coach swimming in the US Virgin Islands and in Delray Beach, Florida. Once again, I witnessed the whole heart holding routine. Eventually the hypocrisy of it all made me sick. Pompous pricks standing there before every swim meet, holding their hearts, while their country was butchering those who lived in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. Were they really trying to tell me their hearts were as one with American slaughter around the world?

By the time I left America for the last time the whole pagan, heart holding liturgy represented death, decay, and treachery. It was the worst of America and America could keep it.

Except I was wrong. America did not keep it. They exported their jingoism to New Zealand. First it was T.J. Perenara. God knows where he got the idea from. But there he is clasping his heart through the National Anthem while every other All Black stands in dignified respect, the way New Zealanders have always done. The best non-selection the All Blacks’ coach, Ian Foster, made this week, was to drop Perenara. At least we won’t have to endure his grotesque display during the National Anthem.

But heart holding didn’t stop with Perenara. Next thing we knew was the New Zealand football team had been ordered to practice the Americanism. There they are, eleven mindless Statues of Liberty, standing to order, with their hands clasped over their fake hearts. No wonder soccer has never taken off in New Zealand. The game is made for wimps and played by wimps. That team really is pathetic. Their pre-match display makes a lie of everything patriotic about our country. They are an embarrassment to us all.

Without question I hope New Zealand gets beaten out of sight in the World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica. It would save us the shame of watching NZ soccer’s overt display of Americanism. There is no sincerity in it, even in the United States. For a New Zealand team, it looks fake and stupid. If it is “in the bonds of love we meet”, NZ football should avoid the mannerisms of the most militant nation on earth.

I wonder if Perenara and NZ Soccer know that prior to World War II, Americans used the outstretched right hand, Nazi salute during their National Anthem. Out of embarrassment the hand over heart replacement was only adopted after the war. The action may have changed, the purpose is the same. The gesture was probably more honest when the whole country did the Nazi salute.  

I guess Donald Trump would like those in NZ who copy the Americans. Perhaps NZ Soccer is pushing to have the bone-spur soldier as their patron. They certainly deserve each other. Go Costa Rica.

I see the New Zealand Herald is reporting a spat between Dame Valerie Adams and some nobody TV reality actor called Louise Wallace. Their subject was female obesity. In a revelation that will surprise no one I agree with Adams. The Wallace defense is that she really believed the insults she made about women who wear clothes sized 16 plus. Of course, she did. Anyone educated in the closeted and privileged Epsom, St Cuthbert’s College, is taught that their opinions are superior. The hurt they inflict is deserved because, as St Cuthbert’s old girls, they know best. Their school motto of, “By Love, Serve” means little to Louise Wallace. St Cuthbert’s are even too embarrassed to include Wallace in their list of “Prominent Old Girls”. That’s odd, I would have thought Wallace represented the school’s values perfectly.   

Adam’s, as she always has, showed herself more than capable of holding her own. She suggested Wallace needed to be educated on the human body and realise the amount of damage she was doing by making comments like that on national television. “So, size 12 is normal but size 18 is not [punch emoji]. Uppercut yourself because what you’re saying is disgusting.”

Game set and match to the South Auckland Southern Cross Campus, me thinks.

No one can coach swimming around the world for forty years without coming across the occasional weight “problem”. Here are my three responses when weight becomes an issue.

• Check the Training

The weight issue may not be an athlete’s problem. Perhaps you, the coach, are the problem. Perhaps the training the swimmer is being given is not properly balanced for the stage of their preparation. Is the swimmer being provided with the correct mix of aerobic, anaerobic and speed training? A problem with the recipe can cause a badly baked cake.

• Check the Group

When I have decided to check a swimmer’s weight, I never pick on one swimmer alone. I select a group and say we (including me) are going to weigh ourselves twice a week to check that “we are not losing too much weight”. Excessive weight loss can be an indication of over-training and/or an early indication of poor health. With this as the reason, I have found swimmers happily weigh themselves, without any of the guilt that goes along with putting on weight.

Sure, I accept the reason is deceptive. But it is a harmless deception and avoids the guilt problems associated with picking one person out as a “Wallace inspired” fatty.

And best of all swimmers are not stupid. When the twice a week weight checks are showing a steady increase in weight, they will self-regulate their food. There has never been a need for me to comment.

• Turn it into a Game

On two occasions, with the right sort of personality, I have turned weight-loss into a competition between the swimmer and the coach. Could the swimmer beat me in getting down to pre-selected target weights? In both cases the swimmers could not wait to get training done to see whether their daily weight loss beat the coach. One of the swimmers was an Olympic Gold medallist who, I am sad to say, beat this coach out of sight in the weight-loss game. It did us both good. She even wrote the daily score on the team whiteboard. Soon others were joining in to see if they too could beat the coach. I had to control that a bit. Too much lost weight can be bad.

However, there was no guilt or shame associated with watching your weight. At least that was a positive.

And so, by employing these three techniques I have never encountered an overweight problem. I think it would be difficult to accuse any of my swimmers as being fat. When it mattered, Toni, Nichola, Jane, Alison and Rhi were never overweight. One Scottish international said he had seen, “more fat on a butcher’s pencil,” than Alison at her best. None of that result involved the blind, conceit or cruel guilt of Louise Wallace. “By Love Serve”? What a bitch. Dame Valerie Adams called Wallace’s opinions disgusting. Amen to that.    

 

Every evening at about 6.45 I watch the TV1 Sport’s News. Hayley Holt and Abby Wilson do a terrific job. They balance humour with news. They report serious issues without judgement. In my view, both are exceptional professionals.

I can’t say I feel the same about Andrew Saville. Tut, tut, tutting around the studio. He comes across as a pompous little prick. For example, last night he was clearly put out about the decision of Phil Mickelson and others to play golf in the Saudi-backed LIV league. Saville decided to promote this as an example of greed over principle. TV1 showed a clip of Mickelson being asked whether there was a country on earth that he would not play in, no matter what money was on offer.

Mickelson struggled to find an answer. So let me help him out. You see it would be hypocritical in the extreme for me to question the motives of these golfers. Not when I signed a contract with the Saudi government to coach swimming in Saudi Arabia for a year. I did exactly what Mickelson has done. The money may be different. The principle certainly is not.

So how do I justify what Mickelson and I have done?

The answer is two fundamental reasons.

• Show me a country that does not have corruption somewhere.  
• Perhaps we can bring about change.

Show me a country that does not have corruption somewhere

Good God, both Mickelson and I have been involved in professional sport in the United States. That’s the United States that shoots school children as a hobby. That’s the United States about to deny women the right to an abortion. That’s the United States that is stripping black voters of their franchise. That’s the United States that invaded Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and half a dozen South American countries. That’s the United States that has more of its citizens in prison than any other country on earth. And that’s the United States that since the year 2000 has butchered 942 people with needles full of poison. Surely, we couldn’t play sport in a civil rights hellhole like that.

What about Israel. Oh no, of course not. Israel murders Al Jazeera journalists. Israel enforces a system of oppression and domination against Palestine. We couldn’t play sport there.

What about China? We all went there for the Olympic Games. China must be okay. But no China executes more people than the USA. China’s treatment of the Rohingya people is appalling. China has decimated democracy in Hong Kong. We can’t play sport there.

I’m sure we are all planning to go to Paris for the next Olympic Games. But what about France? Can we go there? France ranks a dismal 34^th on the United Nation’s “Human Freedom” list. That’s worse than Hong Kong, the United States, Taiwan, Chile and Slovenia. No, we can’t play there.

I’m certainly not trying to defend the human rights record of Saudi Arabia. It is unspeakably terrible. But we do need to recognise that according to the United Nations Saudi Arabia has a better human rights record than countries like China, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, UAE, Russia and India. And yet Andrew Saville is quite happy for us to play cricket, ski, swim, play soccer or play rugby in those nations without questioning our values or subjecting us to an uninformed Salem witch trial.

I’m sure you get the point. If we started being precious about the human rights record of countries where we played sport or exported milk products and meat, the list of eligible countries would be very small indeed. Being as New Zealand is second on the United Nation’s Human Right’s list, Switzerland is the only country we can play with in clear conscience. Or at least that’s the gospel according to St. Saville.

And just one last thought on hypocrisy. If Saville was offered $100million to go to Jeddah to report on the golf, he’d be on an Emirate’s A380 tonight.     

Perhaps we can bring about change

Very few of us leave our moral compass behind just because we are working in Saudi Arabia. Sure, I obeyed the rules. I didn’t demand women join the Saudi swim team or drive cars along the Jeddah waterfront. I didn’t sit on the beach drinking beer. But where I could, I pushed for change.

For example, Eyad and his brother Yamen are Syrian and were not allowed into the government’s state-run swimming pool. I spoke to the boss, Mr. Ali, and arranged permission for them to swim. I used the truthful argument that their talent would help the Saudi swimmers improve. When I returned to New Zealand Eyad came with me and next week, he swims for the Refugee Team at the FINA World Championships in Budapest. His progress will not have gone unnoticed in Saudi swimming circles.

I asked for and was given permission for Eyad and his brother to park their car in the pool carpark. Because they were Syrian their cars had previously been parked out on the road.

And respect is important. Saudi Swimming had an arrogant white South African working for them. In a superior South African manner, he clearly looked down on Saudis and Syrians. On one occasion a swimmer drove this guy to the supermarket to get some lunch. They had to go to a couple of shops to get what he wanted. They got back to the pool fifteen minutes late for work. That evening the South African’s daily report to the Saudi Swimming Head Office contained a slating condemnation of Saudi work habits.

I was incensed. The following morning, I met with the South African and the swimmer. I told the South African that sort of behaviour had no place in my pool. He was being helped and should be thankful. He must apologise immediately. Those sorts of whites do not apologise to Saudis or Syrians, but he did on that occasion.

In a minutely small way, I am hopeful tiny progress was made. Mickelson with his higher profile is capable of much more. Done well, his presence can only be good for the progress of Saudi human rights. And then I wonder what he can do about the gun lobby in his own country.

Twenty years ago, I began complaining about the policy direction of Swimming New Zealand (SNZ). I identified three features of SNZ’s plans that would not work.

• Abandoning democracy in favor of stacking the Board with Sport NZ appointees.
• Centralised training.
• A lack of trade union style athlete representation.

And then, for 20 years, I wrote over one million words pushing, shoving and pleading for anyone who would listen to understand why those issues were so important. Needless to say, my concern was not well received. One Chairman used the SNZ Annual Report to question my credibility. According to him my views were due no respect at all. And so, he continued spending $1.2 million every year for nothing. Another chairman told a New Zealand judicial Tribunal I had spent twenty years being critical of everything SNZ had done. That was a lie. Nothing written in the twenty years had changed. Every word addressed one of the three issues identified at the beginning of this post. The only change was the ever-increasing waste. In the end SNZ spent $32million on their fool’s errand.

Finally, Nick Tongue, someone who knew about swimming, took over the Board and change occurred. Centralised training was dropped. Democracy and a trade union still had to be addressed. But one reform achieved was an important step in the right direction.

They say good things take time, but who would ever have thought that meant twenty years, $32million and one million words.

What a difference that step has made. Someone in the mainstream media should investigate the transformation that has taken place at SNZ. It is a happier, more vibrant, more independent and more successful place. And that is with only one change. Imagine what the new day will bring when the democracy and trade union issues are also addressed.

Normally I would avoid rehashing all this history. However, it is relevant when good people involved in sport keep making the same mistakes. For example, on the Stuff website today Zoe George reports that, Canterbury-based former Cycling NZ board member Kevin Searle is calling for the resignation of the current Cycling NZ Board following the release of a review into the sport.

I do not know Kevin Searle, but he sounds like a pretty decent sort of bloke. He resigned from the Board of Cycling NZ after the first Heron Report achieved nothing. Now that the second Heron Report has confirmed the Boardroom neglect Searle wants the rest of the Board to follow his example and resign.

AND EVEN IF IT HAPPENED THAT WOULD ACHIVE NOTHING.

Sure, the Board are negligent, incompetent and dumb as a post. But getting rid of them will change nothing. Their replacements will be as bad. Three or four new Raelene Castle toadies will still run the show. While the lack of democracy continues Searle’s game of musical chairs will only succeed in replacing bad with bad. The constitution, the policy of Castle’s money buying Board room power has to change. Sport NZ and its leader are a scourge. While Castle has power, Searle’s plan is simply using a band aid to cure cancer.

Swimming, cycling and every other sport need to elect fully democratic Boards. Only when national sporting organisations have Boards that are democratically responsible to the members will the necessary care and responsibility materialise. If Board members are to care about the membership, they must owe their position to the membership. While the majority of each Board is appointed by the monstrosity of Sport NZ and Castle, expecting competent and compassionate leadership is a miserable fantasy. Surely I do not have to write another million words to make that point.

It was a Saturday 16 July 1977. Alison and I were having dinner with Dick Quax at the House on the Bridge in Eton. Ten days before, in Stockholm, Dick had broken the World Record for 5000m in a time of 13.12.9. I was feeling pleased with life. Earlier that afternoon I’d been for a run with Dick around Windsor Great Park. Forever I will tell the story of the day I kept up with the 5000m World Record holder.

After dinner Dick was puffing on a cigar and over a glass of port was telling us about his negotiations with track meet promoters. He said, “David, you must understand. It’s the golden rule. The man with the gold sets the rules.”

Dick was right. And in New Zealand today the woman with the gold is setting the rules. And they are rotten to the core. Only when we change that will sport improve. When we bring back elected representatives of the members setting the rules, only then will Olivia Podmore’s death be honorably addressed.