By David
I begin this story with a heavy heart. The New Zealand Swimming Championships have just ended. It was the most contemptible and depressing version of this meet I have ever attended. The meet now reflects perfectly the character and personality of the person who has led this sport in New Zealand for a decade; full of intrigue and deception, politics and graft. It was a most disheartening sight.
But before I address the concerns that have brought swimming to its knees, I am pleased to report that Swimwatch has hired a prominent firm of attorneys to investigate and report on the decision of the Swimming New Zealand Board to alter the published minutes of the 2010 Annual General Meeting. In particular, I have asked the attorneys to consider whether the SNZ Board’s decision to remove a properly passed remit from the minutes is in any way illegal or unconstitutional and what further action they would recommend. We will report to you in full on their findings. As you can well imagine this type of action is something Swimwatch can ill afford. However the sport of swimming can even less afford to have a group at its head who alter the course of history if it doesn’t suit them.
Jan Cameron’s ways are an abomination. They deny all the good this proud little country represents. I walked into the pool on the first day of competition to find that Cameron’s Millennium Institute swimmers were permanently located in privileged seats next to the New Zealand selectors while the rest of us were expected to shift around the pool to a new location every day. The Millennium swimmers arrived in their black and silver outfits already adorned with the silver fern. There is no need for any of them to win an international swimming race – they already have the finest seats in the building and have become heirs to a uniform their predecessors had to earn. I have the privilege of living in a home where my wife and my daughter represented New Zealand in track and swimming. I have also coached a dozen athletes who have represented four different nations. I know the effort it took them to earn and the value they put on their national uniform. New Zealand’s uniform is not for some Australian to give away to anybody that turns up at her Millennium Institute.
I have also been fortunate enough to attend swim meets with swimmers whose names you might recognize – Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Dara Torres, Amanda Weir, Ian Thorp, Matt Biondi and several other similarly prominent names. Without exception these swimmers sat with their club mates. They mixed happily with those who would never progress past the heats. They displayed a humility that kept them in touch with reality; that kept them aware that they must perform. Even at this meet names like Danyon Loader, Rhi Jeffrey, Gary Hurring, Paul Kent and Jon Winter sat with the common herd. But with four Olympic medals and a dozen World Championship finals between them I guess they represent the sport the way it used to be. The way it was before Cameron.
I owe New Zealand’s Head Coach, Mark Regan, an apology. Here, at Swimwatch, we assumed Regan was a willing Cameron puppet. We were wrong. He was actually her pawn. He was employed as a temporary stand in, to fill in time before Cameron could complete her real mission of appointing her son to the position of New Zealand’s National Coach. At these National Championships Cameron took the next step towards assembling her family dynasty. The team of coaches selected to accompany New Zealand’s swimmers to the World Championships excluded the National Coach, Mark Regan. The three coaches that will travel with the team are Cameron’s son, Scott Talbot, Christchurch coach Leanne Speechley and Invercargill coach Jeremy Duncan. I would be surprised if Regan did not see this as the insult, Cameron certainly intended. He will resign and Cameron will announce that her son will reluctantly step in to save Swimming New Zealand in its hour of need; mission accomplished. But really, you would have to be pretty bloody stupid to believe it was any way to run a national sport. For four years Swimwatch has been pleading for the sport to stand-up to the Cameron dictatorship. This time perhaps someone is listening.
I watched Scott Talbot closely during the Woman’s 100 freestyle final. The race was a essentially a head to head contest between a swimmer from the Millennium Institute, Tash Hind, and a swimmer who left Scott Talbot ten weeks ago to be coached in the United States, Hayley Palmer. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they react in circumstances like that. Well, in this case Tash Hind won and Scott Talbot danced all over Hayley Palmer. He pumped the air and beat his chest. They say sport does not make character, but certainly reveals it. What was revealed in this instance was most unpleasant. Swimming New Zealand with Scott Talbot in charge will be a nasty place. Good manners, breeding and dignity will recede further into our past. Mark Regan has done a good job in exceptionally difficult circumstances. He should be going to the World Championships in China. We wish him better in the future than he has been dealt here.
The announcement of the World Championship team was a mystery wrapped up in an enigma. I was pleased to see “B” qualifiers, Hayley Palmer, Dylan Dunlop-Barrett and Matthew Stanley, selected. One thing I don’t understand though. While Hayley Palmer’s selection is a good one and well deserved, I’d have thought Cameron would have preferred to have her finger nails removed than select the swimmer who rejected her son’s coaching. I’d love to know what caused Cameron sufficient grief; what put her under enough pressure that she included New Zealand’s fastest female swimmer on the team. We will never know but there must have been something. It’s the only time I’ve seen her chicken out of anything. Perhaps she is afraid of the SPARC investigation. I hope so.
Cameron’s influence on the sport of swimming in New Zealand has been awful. The National Championships are not a patch on what they used to be. Ironically though it was Cameron who provided one of the event’s best moments. A swimmer who had been in Cameron’s office recently was telling me about the visit. In a voice positively complete with awe she said, “There is a name plate that goes all the way across Cameron’s desk.” With a title like “Swimming New Zealand General Manager of Performance and Pathways”, I guess it probably does. With an once of luck though, it won’t be there much longer.
From our Club, Jessica Marston performed best, improving her 100 freestyle by one second, her 200 by the same amount, her 400 by four seconds and her 800 by ten seconds; just reward for 664 kilometers she swam in this season’s eight weeks of build up aerobic conditioning.
