By David

The last article Jane wrote for Swimwatch was about the end of her swimming career. What she didn’t tell you, because I kept the statistics, was that she competed for eleven years. In that time she swam 27,548 kilometers (17,218 miles). Excluding holidays that was an average distance of 53.28 kilometers (33.30 miles) per week for 517 weeks. She normally averaged 14 strokes per length which means her arms completed about 15 and a half million strokes in the eleven years. I was pleased to see in her Swimwatch article that she complained only of a sore hip.

In the same years she lifted weights on 1522 occasions. She lifted 7914 tonnes, which, for those of you who have trouble imagining that weight, is the equivalent of one 747 aircraft every two months for eleven years. As I said, I was pleased to see she complained only of a sore hip.

With that work load you can appreciate that there is little time for modern swimmers to indulge in other sports. That was not always the case. In the sixties and seventies we swam, played a little rugby or soccer, ran cross country and took part in the Tiniroto Hunt.

The Tiniroto Hunt tried very hard to emulate the fox hunting traditions of our ancestors; a pack of hounds, scarlet coated horsemen, trumpet calls, the cry of “tally-ho” and polished leather bridles and saddles. No effort was spared to faithfully copy the sport’s British heritage. Unfortunately in New Zealand, one fairly important ingredient to a successful fox hunt was missing. You see, in New Zealand there are no foxes. Instead our hounds hunted down unfortunate rabbits and hares.

I rode in the Tiniroto Hunt. My horse Nehaw was not as impressive as some of the fine steeds owned by the well-off Tiniroto farmers. However, Nehaw could run fast and was a sure-footed beast, crucial qualities for a successful hunt. The night before a hunt, Nehaw’s mangy coat was clipped into a sleek pattern and his tail and mane braided and combed.

I also needed to prepare. Carefully laid out in my room was a black Harry Hall velvet riding hat, riding boots, crop and breeches all bought from the saddler across the road from the Mahia lighthouse in Wairoa. My jacket was bought from Williams and Kettles three or four doors up from the saddler. It looked close to a formal hunting coat, but wasn’t. By midnight I was ready to go.

At six in the morning our club gathered in a frosty field on Dave Berry’s farm and waited for the hounds to pick up a scent; the older club members were already sipping Scotland’s national drink from expensive silver flasks. Eventually the hounds found and ran howling after a scent. With absolute faith in their expertise and honesty we set off in pursuit. At this point I must admit to you that Nehaw knew far more about what to do than I did. As long as I stayed fixed in the saddle he had an uncanny knack of finding the lowest fences to jump and the shortest routes to maintain contact with the speeding dogs.

On more than one occasion I almost left the saddle as Nehaw decided to change direction without warning the driver. I can remember falling only once when Nehaw galloped at full speed down a beautiful smooth slope towards an open gate. A most unfortunate gust of wind swung the gate closed as we reached the opening. Nehaw did the sensible thing and stopped. I did not. In fact I cleared the closed gate at some speed and with several feet to spare.

After galloping around for fifteen minutes or so, the hounds caught the rabbit and quickly murdered the poor animal. I remember clearly the ritual of my first hunt. The Hunt Master said a few solemn words. Blood from the first kill was painted on my cheeks and one of the rabbit’s feet was given to me as recognition that I was not longer a virgin in the hunting business. I kept that foot for years.

Once the first rabbit was killed we waited to do the same thing again and again and again. I sometimes thought we only gave up when the amount of whiskey consumed put the hunt’s older members in danger of falling off their horses at a gentle walk. Nehaw enjoyed the whole experience far more than I did. He was clearly disappointed when it was time to head for home. Usually I couldn’t wait to get home. I don’t know how many of you have done much riding. But let me assure you there is always a buckle somewhere that finds a bit to chaff.

I’m not sure why I went back to each hunt. Perhaps like Jane who swam because that’s what she did. The Tiniroto Hunt was there and that’s what I did. I had more time than her. I didn’t swim 53.28 kilometers every week.

By Jane

When I was a swimmer, the idea of quitting was rather horrible. It has been eighteen months since I last stashed my Fastskin suit in the back of a wardrobe and made my decision not to race again and it was a far easier choice than I’d imagined it would be.

I quit swimming at midday on March 18, 2006. I hadn’t planned on it, but that was the way it panned out. In the morning, I swam in the preliminaries of the 200 yard breaststroke at the NCAA Championships in Athens, Georgia. I didn’t do all that well: I think my time was 2:16.1, but I don’t remember exactly. My best time was, and still is, 2:14.92. My first 100 yards was a 1:04 and things went downhill from there. I’d done all right on the first day of the championships, competing in the 200 IM and recording a time only slightly slower than my best. I wasn’t much of an IMer and had snuck into the 200 IM with a B-cut.

I’m being totally honest here, which is strange for me because I’ve never liked being painfully honest about swimming. For most of my life, swimming validated my existence. An insult to my swimming was a strike right at the heart of who I was. It was as though I had nothing else. Quite honestly, I didn’t really care about swimming anymore when I finally quit. I think I stopped caring about swimming on November 20, 2005, when I qualified for NCAAs. My 2:14.92, swum at the University of Minnesota, wasn’t fast enough to guarantee my place in the NCAA Championships, but it was good enough that I was 99% sure I’d be going down to Georgia in March. In hindsight, that was enough for me. I was getting close to graduation and hadn’t swum a personal best time in the 200 breaststroke since February 2003. Recording a best time in Minnesota was like a gift from heaven.

That swim, in my opinion, made up for a lot of the work and stress and agony I’d gone through. At that point, I started to wind down. Should I have maintained the motivation to swim a 2:13 or a 2:12 at NCAAs? Sure I should have. But now, I finally have the balls to admit that I lost a certain amount of interest once I knew I’d made it to NCAAs. A week before I went to college, I’d expressed the excitement I felt about competing at the NCAA Champs to a fellow swimmer in New Zealand. “Well,” she’d said. “That’s if you make it.”

Finally, I had made it, damnit. However, mentally exhausted and reaching the pinnacle of my physical ability, I’d had about as much as I could handle.

I swam that NCAA preliminary race and got dressed. I doubt I even swam in the warm down pool. A personal best time would have made it back for a night time swim. My time did not. I went out to lunch with my mother and got a bit drunk. We were drinking red wine. I just stated talking and I couldn’t stop. My mother was a runner – a very accomplished runner who represented Great Britain and New Zealand at numerous international competitions. She still holds the New Zealand record over 1000 metres. She understood what I was doing and where I was coming from: I had to talk to someone, but most importantly, I had to talk to myself about how I was done with a sport I’d taken part in since I was six years old. I had to convince myself that it was okay to quit and that I wasn’t a complete loser for calling “Time” on something that (I thought) made me who I was.

Now, I can’t type “goggles” properly. My fingers always type Google, which is indicative of how my life and my career have changed. I now work in search engine optimisation and Internet marketing. There was life after swimming and I needn’t have feared “retirement”, a term I dislike as it’s used far too liberally by people who shy away from the word “quit.” I am not ashamed to use the Q word and I don’t want anyone else to be, either. Knowing when to quit is just as important as toughing it out.

That the end of my swimming career coincided with the end of my college scholarship and undergraduate education was fortunate. However, not given the financial incentive, I probably would have stopped a little earlier. The “high note” to have gone out on would have been after Minnesota. I always told myself that I’d quit after I believed I’d become as good as I was ever going to get. A combination of factors meant that I was not going to get any better. The first factor was that, despite being born with an injury-free spoon in my mouth, I was beginning to suffer from more and more frequent strains in my legs. Not being able to complete a proper breaststroke kick is a big hindrance to swimming good breaststroke and the 200 breast was the only event in which I was ever really competitive.

I’m not trying to encourage anyone to quit, but I wanted to write this for people who want an out but are scared. I know why you’re scared. You’re scared of ridicule from those you leave behind. There is a stigma around leaving the sport. Swimming is all-encompassing activity and when you’re immersed in it, you really believe that it is the only thing that makes your life worthwhile. You hear people talk badly about people who have quit. You are scared about what they’ll say about you. Don’t be.

It doesn’t matter. Once you leave a sport, you must realise that what you left behind ceases to be of any importance. I am getting ahead of myself, but it’s an important point to remember when you’re wondering how people will react to your retirement. You may have lived with these people, breathing swimming like it was precious air during a breathing control set, for years. But once you’re done, their opinions on your swimming don’t mean anything to you.

Another thing you may be worried about is finding something to take swimming’s place. What do you do with that time? More importantly, what do you do with that energy? For me, the energy question was taken care of with running. I found my dream job in order to take care of the extra time. However, the overriding problem is finding something to define yourself. This won’t be a problem for everyone, but it was for me. I had very little self-confidence when I was younger (despite my best efforts to pretend otherwise), but getting better at swimming helped me feel good about myself.

That afternoon in Georgia, I was worried that giving up swimming would result in me giving up a big chunk of my confidence and identity. In actuality, I found that my choice relieved me of a huge burden. Instead of being lost and unsure like I thought I’d be, I could look back on everything I’d done and view it as a whole. It was over, and I could be confident and proud of what I’d done, without worrying about what I still had to do.

All swimmers have at least a small fear of quitting. While there is no guarantee that everyone’s exit from the sport will go as well as mine, there is little to be afraid of. Your life isn’t rendered unimportant once you’re done swimming. You don’t cease to exist. What of those whom you left behind who may have you believe otherwise? Honestly, you’ll forget those snarky poolside discussions about teammates-past in the same way you’ll forget the pain of timed swims, test sets and bad meets. The greatest thing about quitting swimming is that the good memories stay as good and the bad memories fade. I still remember the elation and ecstasy of my swim in Minnesota, just like I remember all the good swims and hard-fought achievements. The horrible practices and dismal performances are distant recollections.

No one can tell an athlete when to stop and many go on too long. Save for the most dense participants, most of us know when our time is up. Do not quit just because you’re about to graduate, turn 18, turn 21, change jobs or do any number of things that constitute a change in your life. Quit because it’s time. Swimming isn’t the safety net you think it is, and you’ll find that you’re more than capable of making something of yourself without a pool, a workout and championship to work towards. The “real world” is pretty awesome. Never be afraid to go out and take a look.

By David

Swimwatch is about to embark on a swimming website first. We are going to offer our endorsement of two candidates in general elections about to take place.

If this is not a first then we apologize. It’s just that we have never seen Swim Info or Swimnews or Timed Finals or Texas Swimming hold their hand up and say vote for Bill Smith, he’s our man. There is no reason why they shouldn’t. In fact there is every reason why they should. Swimming is as much affected by who’s running the country as any other activity. If you find that hard to understand, consider this. Was Title Nine political? Did it affect swimming in the USA? And in New Zealand: is the distribution of pokie machine profits political? Does it affect swimming in New Zealand?

It seems silly that swimming websites get all hot and bothered over performance enhancing drugs, the timetable for heats and finals at the next Olympics and where some swimmer is now training and, yet run shy from offering an opinion on who should run the country. Politicians show no such reluctance. When it suits them they dive headlong into the question of drugs in sport and think nothing of using the Olympics to try to get the Russians out of Afghanistan. Well if politicians are prepared to meddle in our patch it is entirely appropriate we should meddle back.

In the United States, one Swimwatch contributor endorses Hillary Clinton. She’s experienced, tough, able, and intelligent. She’s been a fine senator for New York. There’d be no nonsense in the Oval Office with Hillary in charge. But her ability and experience are not the principal reasons for our support. We are disgusted by the sexist bile of her opponents; for example Chris Mathews of MSNBC. He’s turned his nightly Hardball program into an anti-Hillary, anti-woman rant. It’s the worst we’ve heard since Fred Dagg called his girl friend a “grouse looking sheila”. Gender should never be a factor in deciding who is going to be President. But, while there are chauvinists like Mathews out there, it would do him and the USA a power of good to have a woman in charge. Swimwatch’s editor is backing Barack Obama so felt it necessary to mention him in this post, even though it was written by the Clinton faction. Still, since we still do not know who will gain the Democratic nomination, much of this debate is academic, at best.

Bedroom and kitchen bigots like Mathews are intent on keeping women out of the Oval Office. They just cannot abide the thought that there is a woman out there who’s tougher than them. While Hillary’s campaign carefully tries to avoid the gender card, Mathews and the boys are smacking her as hard as they can with every gender stereotype. You should have heard him tonight showering cheap shots on Hillary because she had husband Bill out there on the stump. In Mathews’ eyes Bill was protecting the little woman. The men candidates meanwhile were reported as having loyal wives supporting their warrior husbands. Mathews is pathetic.

Well, 60% of the participants in swimming are women. Hillary is worth a vote even if it is only to show this 60% that achieving anything, even the White House, is possible. She is also worth a vote to show to the 40% of participants that are male that they cannot treat women the way Mathews does and expect to get away with it. Is that a sexist reason for voting? Yes it is, and it’s a bloody good one as well! Oh, and along the way, the US gets a good President.

In New Zealand Swimwatch endorses the current Prime Minister, Helen Clark. Forbes magazine says she is the 38^th most powerful woman in the world. She’s been the Prime Minister of New Zealand for eight years and has done an exceptional job. The place is fairly humming along. Unemployment is at a twenty year low of 3.5%. A week ago the government announced a record surplus of $NZ11.5 billion for the 2006 year. Financially, what Bill Clinton managed to achieve in the USA, Helen Clarke has done in New Zealand. Isn’t it strange how all the stuffed shirt conservatives accuse liberals like Bill and Helen of having no fiscal responsibility, when it’s their poster boys like George Bush who start wars that spend their country into insolvency. For fiscal management there’s not much wrong with Helen’s record.

She hasn’t been everything we might have wanted for sport. Athlete’s civil liberties have been put at risk by the legislation passed by Helen Clark’s Government sharply increasing the power of the New Zealand drug agency. Her Government founded and financed the formation of a sport’s funding agency called SPARC. Since its birth that agency has been responsible for a steady decline in the health of New Zealand sport. Lydiard said it would happen and it has. This year alone New Zealand has lost the rugby World Cup, the netball World Cup and the America’s Cup. To be fair to Helen Clark, she has put her hand in her pocket and given sport a heap of money. She has received some pretty awful advice on how to spend it.

Unfortunately we here at Swimwatch can’t vote in either the New Zealand or USA elections. If we could, Hillary and Helen would get our votes.

By David

I enjoy flying for the same reason I enjoy swimming. From the moment you ease back on the controls or dive into a pool there is a peerless sense of involvement with one of nature’s elements. There is isolation, there is contentment and there is the busy effort of trying to do this thing just a little bit better than last time. I don’t know whether the multi-thousand hour airline pilots see it that way, but for a one thousand hour amateur, that’s the way it is for me.

Like swimming, flying produces an endless archive of stories. I don’t do it anymore, but when I first learned to fly, I spent most Sunday evenings in the Aero Club bar listening to the old timers tell stories about airplanes. I learned as much in that bar as I did, with Warwick, flying around Palmerston North airport. Every conceivable “what would you do if” was debated long into drunken and senseless nights. In severe turbulence, was hand flying or the automatic pilot better? Forced landings over a pine forest, in a stormy sea or along a rocky river were debated and never agreed upon. At the time, all my landings – even on Palmerston’s wide and long runway – were pretty forced. Little did I know how valuable those aero club debates would one day become.

One evening I was flying from Wellington to Rotorua. That’s about 235 miles. A bit passed half way, over a town called Taihape, you cross over some rugged country. Only real men live in Taihape. There must be women there too but they don’t get brought into the conversation much. Taihape is famous as the home of an annual Gumboot Throwing Championship. A small road behind the main street is permanently cordoned off for those wanting to practice gumboot throwing. It is every New Zealander’s shame that the world record just now is held by Jouni Viljanen of Finland with 64 meters and 35 centimeters.

As I flew high over Taihape on my way to Rotorua, a local farmer took off from his farm airstrip and came on the radio to file an in-flight flight plan. He said he was “off to Wanganui (about 65 miles) to do some shopping”. I’m sure air traffic control needed that information. When he was finished, the patient controller asked, “How many people are on board.” “Well,” came the carefully thought out reply, “there’s me, me dog and the missus, so that’s three of us.”

As a rule, in order to fly at night or in bad weather you need a license called an “instrument rating.” Just before I got mine from the Motueka Flying School, I was flying from Wellington to Christchurch (185 miles). I left Wellington a bit late and I had agreed to drop off a mate of mine at a small airfield near Blenheim in the South Island. By the time I arrived at Christchurch it was pitch black and I shouldn’t have still been flying around New Zealand’s skies. As I entered Christchurch International Airport’s airspace I called air traffic control and asked for landing instructions. I think they were fully aware the idiot in the airplane should not have been there, but to their credit, they never said anything. They told me to circle above Belfast. Fortunately I recognized the lights of Belfast because I used to work in the big meat plant there. The controller said that when I saw the lights of a Focker Friendship coming in from Wellington I should follow it into land.

A couple of circuits over Belfast and I saw the blink, blink, blink of the twin propeller Focker heading in to land. I called the tower and reported my find. The tower came back with the instruction, “Position behind the Focker Friendship and proceed to land.” Diligently I confirmed the instruction in those exact words. The radio clicked and a very up market, extremely bored Air New Zealand captain’s voice said, “For the information of both of you, I’m not a Focker Friendship, I’m a seven thirty seven.” After I’d landed the tower came back on the radio, this time just to say, “Oops.”

On a clear day, flying in New Zealand is a privilege. It is true; there is nowhere else on earth quite like it. New Zealand does not have the domestic order of England’s southern counties or the endless expanse of Australia’s outback or even the manufactured theme park quality of Florida’s south east coast. There is a youthful fresh variety about this place. Human toil has tempered but not tamed the enthusiasm of nature here.

My daughter Jane was just a week old the day I flew from Auckland to Wellington. After leaving Auckland I flew over the populated rush of the nation’s largest city, out over impossibly green dairy fields and passed New Zealand’s longest river’s troubled exit into the Tasman Sea. Further south I saw the triple cones of the central North Island mountains still holding on to small pockets of winter snow. Even here, in this most barren central plateau, the scene was awash with color. Light brown tussock, grey rock, a dark emerald canopy of native bush and smudged into the hillsides are purples, whites and reds of thriving imported heather. Approaching my reporting point at Ohura, the scene changed again to the gorges and ridges of the Parapara Ranges – a place of harshness and angles, an undisciplined jumble of busy streams, steep hills and narrow valleys. As far as I could tell there was not a flat paddock anywhere. This was the last place on earth you’d want to try a forced landing, I thought.

“Auckland Radar, this is Echo Kilo Romeo, overhead Ohura Beacon, 8500 feet. Transferring now to Ohakea radar 130 decimal 6.”

“Roger, Echo Kilo Romeo. Have a good day.”

“Ohakea Radar this is Echo Kilo Romeo overhead Ohura Beacon 8500 feet. Flight plan to Wellington, one POB”

“Roger, Echo Kilo Romeo”, said a lovely soft Scottish accent. “We have you on Radar at 8500 feet.”

Straight on to Paraparaumu, and then the decent into Wellington – that’s strange I thought. A thin mist had appeared over the front window. I looked out the side. Everything was clear. Perhaps it was some atmospheric condition. I checked the engine gauges. They were fine. I loosened my seat belt and looked over the control panel.

“Oh my God,” a thick stream of dark black oil was oozing over the engine cover. Small specks were covering the front window. I knew Wellington was out of the question. The oil pressure gauge was still fine. Perhaps I could reach Wanganui. Quickly I reduced power, eased the nose down and trimmed the Arrow to a 70 knot, 500 foot per minute descent towards the safety of Wanganui. “Maybe”, but before that thought had time to develop the oil pressure dropped into the red zone at the bottom of the gauge. “How long can it stay there before the engine stops,” I thought? The engine answered quickly with a load bang and silence. The propeller sat still.

I had to find a field. I looked to the left. Pine trees, great for export but not the place to land a small airplane. A gentle turn and too many hills – I had heard of topdressing pilots landing uphill, could I manage that? Another turn, thank God I had so much height, what was that – a field? It looked flat. It looked big. It would do.

“Ohakea Radar this is Echo Kilo Romeo.”

I refused to say Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. That would have made things far worse.

“Go ahead Echo Kilo Romeo” said the soft Scottish voice

“Echo Kilo Romeo, 20 miles south of Ohura beacon, descending through 5000 feet. I have complete engine failure.”

“Roger, Echo Kilo Romeo, Please advise your intentions”

My intention is that you should at least sound a little concerned, I thought. “Echo Kilo Romeo, I have found a paddock and am attempting to land.” I said.

“Roger, Echo Kilo Romeo” said the Scottish voice still with not the slightest note of surprise “Cleared to land in a paddock approximately 20 miles south of Ohura. Please call finals.”

Please call finals, who the hell did this guy think he was? I’d better do it though. The field was getting closer; time to put the wheels down; three green lights, good; a bit more flap. “I’ll come in high,” I thought, “that way I’ll avoid the trees and power lines that crossed the final approach.” So far so good – one more turn and I was committed – on finals for better or for worse, come around, line up, actually that looked pretty good.

“Echo Kilo Romeo, on finals for the field.”

“Roger, Echo Kilo Romeo, cleared to land. Good luck.”

Ahh, I thought, the Scottish voice is human after all.

Turn off the electrics, full flaps, speed is good, height, too high, but with no power and flaps that should quickly come down. There was barley in the field and it was a lot taller than I expected. Lift the nose up, up, up. Hold it off. Hold it off. The wheels touched. Keep the nose up. “We’re slowing quickly, must be the barley,” I thought. And then I stopped, silent and alone in a golden pool of barley.

“Bloody great,” I thought, “those Sunday nights in the Aero Club were worth it after all.”

By David

Some of you may recall that two or three weeks ago, Swimwatch published a story about one of our swimmers who was disqualified in the High School Regional Championships. Quite unbelievably, at yesterday’s Gold Coast Winter Championships, this swimmer found herself again embroiled in controversy. It’s unbelievable because on this earth ,you would struggle to find a nicer, less controversial figure than this particular swimmer.

Here’s what happened: The 500 yard freestyle events were swum as timed finals. With the exception of the fastest heat in each age group, all the heats were swum in the morning. On the morning heat sheets however, the evening’s fastest heats were included. I did not read the fine print and assumed our swimmer had plenty of time before her swim, only to discover that the swims shown before hers were all night swims and she had missed her heat.

A mother from our team approached the timekeeper in the swimmer’s lane and learned why the race appeared to have been swum so early. Our mother said a woman sitting next to the timekeeper had been adamant; our swimmer was at fault and would not be able to swim in a later heat. Realizing such decisions are not the responsibility of the timekeeper’s friends, I approached the referee. I’ve dealt with him before. He’s a doctor and is fair, impartial and honest – just the standard of official one has come to expect in the United States.

He said he understood the confusion, thought it was fair and would include our swimmer in a spare lane in the event’s last heat. We shook hands, I thanked him and left feeling good about the standard of American officials. There is many a country around the world where what he’d done would never have been considered. In the best interest of a swimmer this man had done what was just. He had prevented a 16 year old from having the sort of experience that, repeated a few times, could drive her from the sport. A thankful girl swam in the last heat and we thought no more of it.

Six hours later I pulled into the pool parking lot for the evening finals. As I climbed from the car the pool’s loudspeaker demanded, “Would the coach of Aqua Crest come to the official’s table.” There I met the “timekeeper’s friend” who had spoken to our mother in the morning. She said she was the Chairman of the Florida Gold Coast Official’s Committee even though the website says that is still Jay Thomas’ job.

She said she wanted to make several points;

1. She was not going to disqualify our swimmer from the morning’s race. She implied that she could, which was ridiculous. Even if she’d wanted to, I doubt that disqualifying someone six hours later for something the referee had approved would stand rule book analysis. An empty threat like that does nothing for the accuser’s credibility.

1. She said I had been dishonest by going behind her back and approaching the referee. I guess I was supposed to know she was someone important, but I didn’t. No one went behind anyone’s back. I spoke to the referee without any thought for what an unknown “timekeeper’s friend” had told one of our mothers. Being accused of dishonesty was insulting and unnecessary.

1. Accepting she was not the sort of person I have much in common with, I decided to leave. I told her the conversation was over and backed away. She put her hand on my arm in an action I felt was designed to stop me leaving. I told her to let me go, I did not appreciate her message or its delivery.

The next morning, our timekeeper’s friend had another meeting arranged, this time with the local coach and a policeman. A policeman. Yes, seriously.

Ironically the coach and the policeman said they wanted peace. “Not half as much as I do,” I said. “Both the last two meetings were unnecessary and had not been called by me. Keep that woman away from me!”

Her behavior was unacceptable. There was no need to bring up again something that had been well and properly resolved on the morning of the first day. God knows what motive prompted her to embark on her ill-advised odyssey. If she had a problem she should have addressed it with the referee who came to the aid of our swimmer. In the end she seemed to realize that, and apologized. Because she apologized, presumably she was aware she had done something wrong.

However, some things go beyond an apology. What she did requires addressing and censure. It is common, in cases such as this, for Swimwatch to receive comments about how officials are volunteers, donating their time to the sport. All that is true. Swimwatch has commented on many outstanding examples of officials at work, especially in the United States. In no way does that mean the actions of officials are above critical analysis. Identifying one example of bad officiating is not an attack on all officials. It is simply saying this one did bad and should be told that