By David

In four weeks New Zealand will conduct its trials to select a team to compete in the 2011 World Swimming Championships in Shanghai. As we expect, from anything designed by Jan Cameron, the New Zealand selection policy is a bundle of contradictions wrapped in a parcel called confusion.

The current selection process involves Jan Cameron setting qualifying times for each event. Swimmers are required to better Cameron’s standards in the final of their event at the national trials. The idea is that each swimmer has to perform “when the chips are down”; on one day, in the final. Cameron loves pretending she’s as tough as the United States where first and second go to the Olympic Games and third stays at home. We don’t have enough good swimmers to do that here, so Cameron makes everybody compete against a trial time instead.

There are a number of things screwed up about the selection process. First of all, Cameron does not play by the rules. On more than one occasion if the “right” people haven’t made the cut, Cameron has retrospectively altered the standard to make sure her chosen few are included. The most recent Commonwealth Games team was a classic example. Several swimmers didn’t swim Cameron’s times at the Trials. After the meet, Cameron announced an adjustment to the times. The chosen few were on the plane. Question: When is a standard, not a standard? Answer: When it’s set by Jan Cameron.

Having a hard and fast, one race rule is not appropriate in a country like New Zealand. We don’t have a pool of eight swimmers all good enough to swim in the Olympic final. We are not the United States or even Australia. A selection policy applicable and valid in Omaha, Nebraska is entirely inappropriate in New Zealand. We need to look after our resources. We need to offer our best swimmers a qualifying window; a period of time and a series of meets where the selection standard can be achieved. This is not about being tough, this is about winning the Olympic Games. We require a selection procedure that recognizes our size and our swimming resources.

The worst feature of Cameron’s current selection policy is its capacity to annihilate talent. Peter Snell would never have run in the Rome Olympic Games if Cameron had been the selector. Probably the biggest injustice I have seen in New Zealand swimming occurred because of Cameron’s selection folly. You see, in 2004 New Zealand swimming had a Peter Snell equivalent; a swimmer of untapped potential; a swimmer of character and courage. Unfortunately Melissa Ingram did not have a coach with the insight of a Lydiard. She had Jan Cameron and Ingram was left off the Athens Olympic team. She fought back to become one of the world’s best. Had she been able to swim in Athens, God knows how good she could have been in the Beijing Olympic Games, but for Cameron’s blind ideology.

And if you think the pool selection policy is bad, you should take a look at the minefield New Zealand’s long distance, open water swimmers have to negotiate. But before we look at the selection criteria it is relevant to take into account the status and position of this new Olympic event. Like all new events the world’s best athletes take a while to work through the learning curve of thoroughly understanding the event. That is not to say winning a long distance medal is easy. However, in the environment of a new event, there is a huge opportunity for New Zealand’s long distance swimmers to steal a march and win a London medal.

To be selected for this year’s World Championships or next year’s Olympic Games, Cameron decided the selection standard would be based on achieving a top four place in the Australian National Championships. However Australia are far stronger in men’s distance swimming just now than in the women’s events, which means New Zealand’s men have a far tougher qualifying hill to climb than our women.

So here is how this year’s New Zealand World Championship trial in the Australian Championships went. Cara Baker did really well. She came second but was almost five minutes slower than the winning Australian. She’s selected though and on her way to Shanghai. On the men’s side Kane Radford went one better than Baker and won the 5000 meter event. The two Australians he beat into second and third are on their way to the World Championships. But Radford has to stay home. Why? Because Cameron says the 5000 meter race at the World Championships doesn’t count, because 5000 meters is not on the Olympic program in London. In the pool though, I bet Cameron will pick Emily Thomas for the World Championships even if the only event she qualifies in is the 50 backstroke, and that’s not an Olympic event either. In any selection process the most important quality is to be fair. Cameron’s selection rules fail that test.

Incidentally, Radford also came seventh in the 10,000 meter event only fifty four seconds behind the Australian winner; proof positive that he is in a position to possibly win both distances in Shanghai and move on strongly to the 10,000 in London. But no, the winner of the Australian 5000 Championships is not going to Shanghai. According to Jan Cameron, he’s not good enough to represent her version of Swimming New Zealand. It’s little wonder she has just spent $6 million and has never won anything.

I’m told the Australians and the Americans can’t believe New Zealand’s best male distance swimmers are being left at home. They are thanking the swimming Gods that Jan Cameron has just made the chances of an Australian or an American winning the World Championships a whole heap easier.

For some reason distance swimmers get the rough end of the Cameron stick when it comes to selection and to the allocation of money. Pool swimmers are entitled to something called a MISH scholarship if they are ranked better than 75 in the world. Open water, distance swimmers however can only access MISH money if they have a ranking in a pool event; presumably the 1500 meters. One has to be a bit suspect of the legitimacy of using 1500 meter pool rankings to judge someone whose event is swimming 10,000 meters in open water. I can’t imagine Athletics New Zealand picking their marathon runners by how fast they run 5000 meters on the track. That obviously doesn’t worry Cameron though. It is this sort of nonsense that makes you wonder just how much that woman really knows about swimming.

The whole distance swimming regime in New Zealand is in need of serious surgery. The selection, the coaching, the funding – none of it is consistent, well-thought-out or fair. I’d certainly be sending Radford and Ryan (he won the New Zealand Championships) to this year’s World Championships in Shanghai. In addition I’d make sure there was one other swimmer besides Baker representing New Zealand in the women’s events. They could be just the people to win Cameron her first world medal. And, sadly, they’ve virtually cost Cameron and the country nothing.