By David

One of our triathletes is a second year student at Florida Atlantic University. She’s doing a course on feminism and has been asked to write a five thousand word paper on a female role model. I thought Swimwatch might help. The tutor has asked that the work of the chosen woman be contrasted with the images of exploited women found in glossy magazines and television advertising. FAU clearly wants its young students to end their course as pious apostles of Madame Curie, Florence Nightingale and Indira Gandhi. It seems the works of Pamela Anderson, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell are not viewed too favourably in the feminist corridors of FAU.

But I wonder if this is actually right. I don’t mean to denigrate the contribution of Madame Curie, Florence Nightingale or Indira Gandhi. They are remarkable women who touched and improved the condition of their generation, their gender and their world. It was and still is true that the road walked by women of ability is harsh and more difficult than their male peers.

Even in swimming, that’s true. The attitude of men is fairly easy to identify. Men in the training pool risk heart attacks trying to prevent a Rhi Jeffrey or a Darra Torres from passing them. Day after day, these women swim alongside men who feel threatened by a female and immediately increase pace to prevent her passing, their neck and shoulders bright red as they strain to avoid the inevitable. They would be far less likely do this if a male was trying to pass.

Weight training is where you see the most extreme examples of men’s ingrained belief in their superiority. Go to a gym and try a 100kg Lat Pull Down or a 40kg elbow raise. I’ve helped female swimmers who have lifted these weights. But the reaction of men is fascinating. The young bloods that surreptitiously set their own weights to the same level and then strain and struggle to do the lift. Many well-meaning males warn female swimmers of the dangers they face lifting heavy weights. They’d never bother if it was a man.

But my reservation with FAU is the implied criticism of Pamela Anderson, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. You see, if it is right that women are degraded by what these women do, then women today should be more vilified than they were one hundred years ago. After all, in those days no one appeared in a bikini trying to sell anything. When women were denied the right to vote, there were precious little of the fun and games Pamela Anderson gets up to these days. The lot of women appears to have improved as the behavior of some women has become more unchecked. Perhaps their liberated behavior has helped.

It also seems true that the quantity of clothes women wear or what they advertise has little to do with their social freedoms. Some of the most clothed women in the world live in the most awful repression. Pamela Anderson may show a few too many tattoos for sensitive eyes, but it does not prevent her society educating her or giving her the right to vote. That’s more than you can say for the jilbab clad women of Afghanistan.

My swimming role model for the FAU essay will be Amanda Beard, the current Olympic 200m breaststroke champion and subject of a recent Playboy photo shoot. My guess is the feminist staff at FAU will share USA Swimming’s horror at Amanda Beard’s Playboy spread. They too will mumble about swimming being a family sport and photographs that degrade women. Can’t you just hear it? “She was such a nice girl when she was fourteen and won all those medals in Atlanta. It’s such a shame. Just look at her now. In Playboy – of all things!” But again I’m not so sure.

I’m certainly not suggesting that any other swimmer appear in Playboy. But I am pleased Amanda Beard had the opportunity and the right to do the article. FAU and some swimming officials may not like it, but what Amanda Beard did was not degrading. On the contrary, it’s a thing called freedom and that’s worth hanging on to, even if it does involve the occasional good looking swimmer appearing in Playboy. Posing for Playboy may or may not be good for women or the sport of swimming; having the freedom to appear if you want to is very good for both. USA Swimming deserves credit for not trying to censure Beard for her Playboy adventure. I know of more than one Association around the world who would not have been so restrained. And that would have been degrading.

Well done USA Swimming; pity about our “D” in the feminist class at FAU though.

By David

New Zealand has had to settle a king-size sporting problem this weekend. The world’s two best single scull rowers live in New Zealand. This weekend, Mahe Drysdale and Rob Waddell compete in trials on Lake Karapiro for the one place available to New Zealand in this year’s Beijing Olympic Games. Hopefully by the time I’m finished writing this piece I will be able to tell you which athlete will go and which one will have to find another boat or stay at home.

Drysdale is the current world champion and the fastest single sculler in history. He enjoyed a spectacular 2007. He edged out Marcel Hacker in one of the great single scull world championship finals to win his third straight title. He also won the Diamond Sculls at the Henley Royal Regatta and numerous other titles in the United States and Europe.

Rob Waddell won the Sydney 2000 Olympic gold medal in the men’s single scull. He then retired from rowing and played high level rugby before taking up a position with Team New Zealand to defend yachting’s prestigious America’s Cup. Waddell’s return to rowing has been marked by an unofficial world record on the indoor rowing machine. Earlier this month over 5,000m he went under 15 minutes finishing in a time of 14:58.03. At the same trials, Drysdale finished in a personal best time of 15:11.

There are some in New Zealand who bemoan the fact that both these champions can’t be in Beijing to settle their personal rivalry. They have a point. If the function of the Olympics is to sort out who’s the world’s best, it seems a bit silly to exclude the world’s second best from the race. Don’t feel too bad for New Zealand though. America faces the same problem at every Olympics in a score of events.

Take swimming for example. The table below shows the number of Americans ranked in the world’s top eight in selected Olympic swimming events. Only two will get on the airplane to Beijing. The others, who could reasonably expect to make the Olympic final, and maybe even win the race, will instead be sitting at home watching it all on TV.

And so American swimming will have at least sixteen Waddells and Drysdales sitting at home watching events they are potentially capable of winning. Not only that – for the Americans, this problem exists at every Olympics. No wonder the Olympic Trials here are cut-throat affairs. However, it has to be said that they are only a natural extension of the fierce competition that characterises swimming in this country from Florida’s “eight and under” Junior Olympics to the Olympic Trials.

I think that’s why you seldom hear American elite swimmers complain about missing selection. Since they first put on water-wings, they’ve lived in swimming’s most merciless habitat; for them it’s normal.

The problem in America is not restricted to swimming. The table below shows the same data for selected track and field events. Track has the luxury of selecting three competitors in each event.

Another seventeen of the world’s best athletes are left sitting at home. Have you ever wondered why one of the US territories, such as the US Virgin Islands, Guam or American Samoa doesn’t offer these “left at homes” a chance to compete? All you need to represent these territories is a US passport and live in the territory for three or four months. With a little bit of imagination, the US Virgin Islands could go off to Beijing with the second best swim team and track team in the world. The Virgin Islands relegates Australia to the world’s third best swimming nation. What a wonderful thought!

But back to Waddell and Drysdale: what happened in that race? Well, Drysdale won two out of the three trials and is going to represent the country and New Zealand Rowing are going to have to find a spot in the crew of another boat for Waddell, or leave him in New Zealand. Incidentally, New Zealand Rowing had better pick Drysdale. Over the last couple of days they’ve made noises about not being tied by the result of the trial. That’s the sort of dishonest nonsense that Swimming New Zealand used to get up to as well. It used to drive me mad. At least in the States a trial means a trial.

This is international sport. It is right and proper; the loser of the rowing trial is going to have to watch his countryman compete in the Olympic event he could very well have won. Unless of course we rush through a US passport, and he too can represent the US Virgin Islands.

By Jane

Do you like “signal” posts, as opposed to “noise?” Would you rather hear training theories, racing tactics and various other competitive swimming anecdotes? If so, you may want to join our impressive bounce rate and Back-button on out of here, because I’m about to talk about nothing of the sort. Maybe this could be considered a training theory, but don’t call me in a fit of rage when you don’t make your Olympic Trials cut. I would make a lousy coach; let me show you why.

I like to drink when I swim now. Thankfully, I don’t swim very often and (equally thankfully) I don’t usually get to drink whilst swimming, but I did this week at the SMX West conference in Santa Clara, California. My co-worker and I arrived in California (oh my God, it’s more than ten degrees above freezing!) and headed straight for the Santa Clara Hyatt’s pool. After a careful investigation, which involved me swimming a few lengths and making an educated guess, we deduced that the pool was twenty metres long. We were equipped with caps, goggles (yes, I wrote “googles” the first time. Shut up) and real swim suits. We were ready to “work out.”

You see, my co-worker will compete in a triathlon this summer. She is preparing for her first half-Ironman. She completed the Vancouver Marathon last summer. She isn’t as strong a swimmer as she is a runner yet, but she’s been swimming three or four times a week and didn’t want to halt her regime during the four days we were in California.

We started off well. She had five or ten minutes of warm-up to complete. I swam away on one side of the pool while she swam on the other. There were no lane ropes and no other swimmers. Right before we’d begun, however, three of our friends from the UK had turned up beside the pool (it’s a shame their colleague Tom Critchlow couldn’t have been there too, isn’t it, Tom? See your picture, Tom? The rest of you can pay no attention to this nonsense.) Soon after we started swimming, someone British suggested that we might like a drink to go with our training.

My co-worker managed to complete her session, but I was well and truly distracted. I managed a few more lengths, including a 20-metre breaststroke as-fast-as-possible which was more impressive than you’d expect from a two-years’ retired, half-bottled search engine geek. With the Pac 10 Swimming Championships currently underway in Southern California, my “training session” reminded me both of how much I enjoyed my swimming career and how glad I am that it’s over.

By David

Have you ever heard of the game called “Six Degrees of Separation?” You play it by working out how far removed you are from the world’s famous people, or from anyone, for that matter. For example, I am one degree of separation removed from President Kennedy. One of our Masters swimmers spent his working life managing the affairs of various US Consulates around the world and he met President Kennedy. Thanks to Stuart, I am also only one degree of separation removed from Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson. Fortunately Stuart never met the current President. I also have just one degree of separation from the New Zealand Prime Minister. Evan, a university mate of mine, works in her office.

It is amazing how few steps are required for most of us to be associated with everyone else. Several studies estimate that each person is an average of just six steps away from every other person on the earth. I never thought I’d have any association with the World Trade Center terrorists. However, in my apartment block in Delray Beach, Florida I live on the third floor. On the fifth and top floor, in apartment 1504, Mohammed Attar plotted the events of September 11, 2001. That’s not the kind of close separation I like.

New Zealand is such a small place that it seems I’ve never met another New Zealander who does not know at least one person that I also know. In fact, New Zealanders must be among the world’s most nomadic people. They turn up everywhere. It could be looked on as an awful condemnation of their home country. Thousands of us can’t wait to get away from the place. But I don’t think so. Instead I think it’s a huge compliment that so many of us are out around the world exploring life elsewhere, confident that our home is a pretty good place to go back to should we ever feel the need. There can’t be much wrong with a nation that breeds such a determined group of independent explorers. Compare that to the thousands in Kansas or Ohio who have never ventured more than a hundred miles or so from where they were born and tell me which one suggests a problem.

Here in Delray Beach, I know one other New Zealander, Kevin, whom Barry Crump would certainly consider a “Good Keen Man.” He is one of a long line of talented and able Kiwi yachties who race expensive sail boats for rich foreign owners. One of his boats made the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald when it struck a rock in Sydney Harbour and sank. He will probably never talk to me again unless I mention that he was not steering at the time.

Eventually, Kevin arrived in the United States, married a very understanding American girl and settled in Delray Beach. Today, Kevin runs a successful home improvement business. His son knows as much about the All Blacks as he does about the NFL. Their home regularly wins the “best lit house in the county” prize at Christmas. But best of all, Kevin remembers the needs of his countrymen. Occasionally he has work to do in the Bahamas. There is a shop there that sells tins of New Zealand’s Anchor butter. Each time Kevin makes the trip he brings me back a tin, knowing that just opening it will bring back all the smells and sights of Taranaki and the Waikato, of guys in Swandris milking a hundred cows before dawn, of muddy gumboots and spotless cow sheds. We’re both here but we haven’t forgotten back there either.

In fact I’m told Kevin was not all that pleased at my lack of concern for New Zealand’s loss to France in the World Rugby Cup. Of course I wanted New Zealand to win but the coach, Graham Henry is not a winning coach; the New Zealander Robbie Deans is a winner, but he coaches the Australians. If that coaching combination stays the same through to the next World Cup, Australia will win; sorry Kevin.

Kevin’s neighbors are members of the Aqua Crest swim team. How’s that for degrees of separation? Their daughter is a very good eleven year old who one day will be good enough to fly off and swim in Europe and other places we like to go. She’s a tough, hard worker and as I’ve told her, she has the advantage of having a New Zealander as her neighbor. Jane, Toni and Nichola each competed for New Zealand in about twenty different countries in their swimming careers. I’m picking that Kevin’s eleven year old neighbor will one day become just like them.

This year, two of the Aqua Crest team are going to the Mare Nostrum series in Monaco, Spain and France. Joe is an ex-USC swimmer and has worked hard to get back into shape after one year away from the sport. Andrew has been doing a Lydiard program for two years and has won a Florida High School Championship and been fourth on three other occasions. They are good guys and I think will enjoy joining that nomadic band of swimmers who, “have suit; will travel.”

By David

The title of this item is a quote from one of the unpublished messages received by Swimwatch. What it is supposed to say is, “Your poop does smell – just like everyone else’s”. The author’s English is as suspect as many other qualities revealed by the message. It amazes me, the personal and always anonymous bile that pours forth from some of these unfortunate souls. I don’t know why they bother. Their contribution to the sum of human knowledge is not going to be published. Perhaps they are happy just knowing the subject of their venom has read the stuff they write.

He, or she, is however not alone. For every serious, valued contribution Swimwatch receives, there is one that is an awfully sad reflection on the world inhabited by its author. It would be nice to publish unedited the comments received. Unfortunately, while there are individuals like this out there, we will continue to enable comment moderation.

The “poop does smell” comment was received in reply to my recent Arthur Lydiard article. You may recall that this article’s core point was that a wider acceptance of Lydiard principles might reduce the drop-out rate that is of such concern to the Florida Gold Coast LRC. It should be possible to make that positive suggestion without motivating a torrent of personal attacks. It appears not. I thought you might be interested in some other examples of correspondence received but not published. They too are educational; they provide a frightening insight into the way some of those involved in the sport think.

One writer took the opportunity to attack a swimmer on our team: the “only good swimmer left there is now a one trick pony that is under achieveing.” Far be it from me to criticize others spelling, however for the record, “achieveing” is spelled “achieving.” This chap makes so many spelling errors! He should start using the computer’s “spell-check” facility.

Let’s look a bit deeper into what he says: “a one trick pony.” That accusation could be leveled at almost every good swimmer. Gary Hall swims the 50 and 100 freestyle. Popov could swim pretty good backstroke but usually restricted himself to 50 and 100 freestyle. You don’t see Grant Hackett swimming much breaststroke or Hansen entering the 1500 freestyle. New Zealand’s best sprinter for a number of years, Nichola Chellingworth, only swam 50 and 100 freestyle and 50 butterfly. Amanda Beard swims a good medley but tends to focus on the 200 breaststroke. There are, of course, Phelps and Hoff who can turn their hand to a wide range of events. Most of the good ones, however, are one trick ponies. Next time this sage contributor meets Gary Hall, I wonder if he will be as liberal with the “one trick pony” label. It would do him well to remember that for most of us the alternative to a one trick pony is “jack of all trades, master of none”.

The under achieving label in this case is a bit harsh. In the last two years the swimmer being referred to has won one Florida State High School Championship and been fourth on three other occasions. His best 50 yards time has improved from 23.43 to 21.25 and his 100 yards from 49.09 to 46.36, that’s 9.3% and 5.6% in two years. I imagine there are a many of us who would welcome that sort of record and improvement even if it was considered by this swimming genius as “under achieving”.

Another comment sent to Swimwatch recently said, “For someone who has now coached in the Forida Gold Coast for OVER 2 years now – what has this the way of training produced?” You see what I mean about the standard of the critic’s English. One can only hope, “No child left behind” does better in the future.

It is a pity this critic does not read my writing about Lydiard’s training more closely. On almost every occasion I make the point that results come slowly; a minimum of four years is required to make the physiological changes required for elite performance. In “Swim to the Top” I put it like this.

“Be very aware however that results in the early seasons may take longer to show than aggressively sprint trained competitors. Build up conditioning is not the fastest way of achieving fine results. In fact it is often quite slow. It is however the best way to achieve the best results.”

The critic’s quote brilliantly illustrates the point I was trying to make in the Lydiard article. Clearly, “OVER 2 years” is considered ample time. Abject failure can be the only appropriate description of two years of modest improvement. There is little wonder that Florida has its share of teenage drop outs when idiots like this consider two years to be an extended and relevant time period in which to achieve athletic success. Thank you for the illustration.

Incidentally, in the two years he refers to, this team has grown from ten swimmers to eighty, has had two Florida State High School Champions and several other finalists, two National Masters Champions and several other finalists, three National qualifiers and a bunch of juniors who love the sport. Our critics describe this as failure but we are pleased with our steady and modest progress.

It is difficult to understand the motives and intellect that produces the mindless animosity in some of these emails. I suggest that before they press the send button in future they consider whether their efforts are making a contribution and even then, pause for one more moment and turn on the “spell-check” facility.