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Was Danyon Loader in Wellington?

By David

Supporters of the current Board of Swimming New Zealand recognize a public relations disaster when they see it. The decision to exclude Danyon Loader from the Wellington SNZ meeting qualifies as a major mistake. What is upsetting is when Swimming New Zealand supporters resort to lies and distortion to defend the indefensible.

Yesterday the Vice President of the Canterbury Association told TV3 that Danyon Loader was never at the Wellington meeting. A Swimwatch reader called Molly wrote a comment that implied our website was lying to its readers. Here is what she said.

“…someone is saying more than their prayers… Must have been a divine aberration for the person who claims Danyon Loader was not allowed at the Sunday meeting…might pay to check these things.”

So Molly, we took your advice and we checked. And guess what? It seems like you and the Canterbury Vice President are prepared to distort the truth and smear the reputation of innocent people to defend SNZ people like yourselves. In spite of what you told TV3, Danyon Loader was at the Wellington meeting. He was told it would be better if he did not attend. And like the gentleman he is he left rather than cause a scene.

I have no idea what moral wasteland Molly and the Canterbury Vice President inhabit that would cause them to defend those who chose to reject New Zealand’s best swimmer; a swimmer who also proved better than anyone that Cameron’s Millennium Institute and Coulter’s Board policies are the wrong way to win Olympic Championships.

It seems to me that Molly and the Canterbury Vice President owe New Zealand’s best swimmer, Television 3 and Swimwatch an apology. My guess is that all three of us will wait some time for that to arrive.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 18th, 2011 at 9:29 pm and is filed under New Zealand . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Tom

    It’s a particularly strange position to take, when Murray Coulter has already confirmed Danyon Loader was declined permission to speak at the meeting. Here are the quotes from yesterday’s Stuff news item (http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/5456248/Regions-undecided-over-swimming-board-sacking):

    New Zealand swimming great Danyon Loader was declined permission to speak at the meeting but Coulter said that he was not being muzzled and his views would be heard.

    “Danyon was going to be in Wellington at the same time at the meeting and asked to speak, but we had 20 or so people in the room all with views and wanted to run a reasonably tight meeting.”

  • Chris

    I suspect the Canterbury Vice President is very much alone is this situation, as I do not think that person reflects the Board at large. They do have a new Chair, who by all accounts is very good, but was apparently abroad.

    Interesting isn’t it – just as we predicted would happen at that meeting on Sunday. McDonald and Co spent 5 hours trying to divide and rule, threaten and bully the regions into submission, and if they could pick off someone from the regions, that would be a victory. So they probably think that picking off the Vice-President of Canterbury was a victory. Except, unfortunately for that person they have fallen into a very predictable trap. I also think an apology is in order, not least to your own region.

    But it also begs the question concerning Coulter’s response, which was all about damage limitation. He of course doesn’t address the obvious issue of why Danyon was asked to leave in the first place when he has a constitutional right to be there. This was nothing about lots of people needing to have their say – they had bloody 5 hours for goodness sake.

    No … yet again … poor, poor judgment! And frankly, Coulter should have known better.

  • molly

    …moral wasteland – thats rich coming from you. If one can ask when are you going to post the solution to all the moaning that you all do – when will put on the table the new plan for swimming so that regions can get on with talking to the clubs and their membership. So are you part of the solution or part of the problem.?

  • Tom

    Molly, you are correct. Criticism only goes so far. Ultimately, solutions are required. However, with respect, you have failed to address the situation at hand. You wrote Danyon Loader was not declined access to the Wellington meeting, when it has been confirmed (including by Murray Coulter) that he was indeed denied access.

  • Jonathan

    David, long time reader, first time blogger.

    Our regional president confirmed that they were talking to Danyon at the airport and that he came over to the meeting with them on the Sunday morning. They confirmed to me that Danyon was told that it would be better if he were to leave after he went into the golf club with them for the meeting.

    I am really getting very angry over all this. We have a 10 year old and I was wondering how this all affects us which is why we have been reading Swimwatch and why I was talking with our President.

    I am quite disgusted by Murray Coulter and how he represents Swimming in the press. I am disgusted by the lies which get told and hearing this about how they treated Danyon Loader simply disgusts me too.

    I told our regional president that I did not want to have my 10 year old participating in a sport with such obviously poor national leadership and who have such bad moral judgement. But he loves his swimming and we do not want him to finish.

    Our president promised me that they would see this through to the end and that they would do the best to ensure that this crowd are replaced with people who know the difference between right and wrong, truth and lies. We will wait and see. I hope that things get better soon, but I cannot see it happening with this crowd.

    BTW, that Kerry MacDonald sounds like a real nasty piece of work.

  • David

    The argument that solutions are never included in the pages of Swimwatch is most frustrating. There have been many pages written on the solution favoured by Swimwatch. Molly is clearly a regular reader – she must have come across the suggestion that the Millennium Institute is dropped and is replaced by a network of local coaches – as per the Lydiard plan for Finnish Athletics.

    However, Molly, my suggestions pale in comparison to the recent contributions made by Swimwatch commentators. Tom, Stevie, Northern Swimmer, Sensible Swimming and a dozen others have made hugely important proposals for the structure to replace the current shambles. I suggest you read these comments. I have learned a lot. You may too.

    David

  • Tom

    David, it should also be pointed out the Ineson Report made a number of recommendations for improvement, and despite agreeing to these, very little progress has been made by management to implement them.

  • Molly, my assessment of your comments of the last day can be broken down to:

    1) Danyon was definitely there and was definitely asked to leave (as other have said).

    2) Swimwatch articles have suggested numerous improvements and changes, as did the Ineson report. Swimwatch has questioned over and over again why no one has taken any actions as a result of the report’s findings. Unfortunately, no one commenting here (to my knowledge) has the power to implement those actions.

    3) You sound like you have personal grievances against David with your “thats [sic] rich coming from you” comment. Would you care to elaborate?

    Certainly, as his daughter and as one of his former swimmers (1996 – 2002 plus four more years of NCAA swimming where I swam with him during summers), I feel that I was raised well by parents who instilled me with good morals, and who had good morals themselves. Especially when it came to standing up for what we believed was right and what we believe is true.

  • Rhi Jeffrey

    LOL Molly, if you’re going to be an a**hole then at least be an a**hole who is right. It’s a lot easier to defend your points if they are at least accurate. And as far as taking a jab at David, at least he has the balls to express his opinion with his name attached to it dear “Molly”. And these guys are right, there have been TONS of suggestions as to how SNZ can fix things. Read up a bit, ay?

  • David

    Hey Molly – It looks like both Rhi and Jane are after you just now. I know them both pretty well and if it was me I’d give up the fight. Just thinking of what’s best for you.

  • Tom

    An interesting development in sport over the ditch, with some similarities to the current situation with swimming in New Zealand (http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/hilditch-forced-out-as-australian-cricket-selectors-get-the-axe-20110819-1j1nv.html).

    Following a steady decline in the performance of Australian cricket, an independent review was ordered. “It recommended that coaching and selection at the elite level of the sport in Australia needed a major overhaul.”

    The obvious difference is the board of Australian Cricket has acted immediately on the report’s findings, firing the selection panel and head coach.