By David

In our previous posting we discussed a Lee Radovanovich interview with Christian Renford, the new CEO of Swimming New Zealand. Our main concern was to determine Renford’s position on the centralized delivery of elite sport compared to a diversified federal approach.

However this was not the only item of interest to emerge from the discussion on Radio Sport. Renford had some pretty telling things to say about the standard of coaching he had seen on his tour of New Zealand swimming clubs. I have no idea whether Renford has any academic or practical training that qualifies him to pass judgement on the standard of New Zealand swim coaches. I suspect he has none. However he did it anyway.

This is what he said. “One of the central themes that has come out of my Regional tour, I think, it (coaching) is an area where we need to do more work in. It’s an area where we need to put a bit more attention to.”

And when Lee Radovanovich asked him to explain why the new National Coach, the High Performance Director, the CEO of Swimming New Zealand and the Director of High Performance Sport New Zealand were all aliens, Christian Renford had this to say;

If we had the domestic talent that we needed we would have been looking in that (the New Zealand) direction. You need to hunt for the best talent you can get available in the water and out of the water and if they come from overseas then so be it. Your point before about building up our coaching depth is that we want to make sure we have a good calibre of domestic coaches pushing these guys. In the short term we absolutely have got the best talent that we can get our hands on for the national swim program.

I do note Renford’s aspiration to have “domestic coaches pushing these guys”. Rest assured this domestic swim coach and contributor to Swimwatch will work tirelessly to make certain Renford’s request is satisfied in full measure.

As for the rest of it, Christian Renford, thank you for nothing. How dare you come to New Zealand and after eight weeks dismiss the men and women who work in my profession. How dare you say that there is not a New Zealander good enough to manage High Performance Sport New Zealand or to manage Swimming New Zealand or to coach Lauren Boyle and her mates or to manage the SNZ High Performance Program. How dare you suggest that foreigners were needed because New Zealanders were not good enough. How bloody dare you.

I know of a dozen New Zealanders well qualified to fill all those positions. You don’t believe me? Well, go back to Australia and we’ll get one better qualified to do your job. Miskimmin’s worship of things foreign is an embarrassment – and it’s dangerous. You don’t think so? Well consider this.

Taking into account the pillaging of New Zealand coaching talent that went on through the decade of the Australian import that used to manage New Zealand Swimming’s High Performance Program, New Zealand coaches have done well to survive at all. For ten years Swimming New Zealand openly poached New Zealand’s best swimmers. Three came from Greg Meade in Gisborne, one came from Russell Geange in Carterton, Gary Hurring in Wellington supplied three or four, Hamilton sent two or three to the North Shore, Hastings sent three, Matamata sent a couple and so did Christchurch. It was an institutionalized human heist.

You do not need to be the holder of a USA Swimming Level Five coaching diploma to know that it is difficult for home coaches to perfect their coaching skills when the sport’s national body snatches the country’s best swimmers and ships them off to the Millennium Institute. When that has been standard practice for ten years the coaching destruction is nuclear. The standard of New Zealand coaching is excellent given the hurt an Australian caused the sport. And according to the new Australian, Renford, that submissive role for New Zealand club coaches is just fine. Remember what he told Radovanovich, “We need to make sure that (the centralist elite program) is supported by a decentralized development pathway that underpins the centralized model”. If we take him at his word, the future for New Zealand coaches is as bleak as it was under the last Australian to run this sport.

Before I discuss the next aspect of the foreigners that run New Zealand sport, let me tell you that I have some knowledge of family members competing for different countries. My wife, Alison, ran for New Zealand, Scotland and Great Britain. My daughter, Jane, swam for New Zealand and the United States Virgin Islands.

I make that point only to demonstrate that I have no problem with athletes whose careers involve representing two or three different nations. My understanding is however being tested when I noticed that the Canadian who is in charge of High Performance Sport New Zealand, Alex Baumann, has two children who are both good swimmers and train with a New Zealand swimming club. They could have chosen to go through the process involved in becoming eligible to represent their new home; the country that has provided their family with a generous life style. Instead, at the Santa Clara Meet this weekend, Baumann’s daughter chose to represent Canada.

I am sure his family’s allegiance to Canada will not affect Baumann’s ability to promote high performance New Zealand athletes. The perception, though, of divided commitment is not a good one. In international sport exclusive loyalty and national pride are important qualities. The perception that the boss of High Performance Sport may have divided allegiances – even if he hasn’t – is not a good one; especially when his organization spends $60 million of our money on elite sport. After all Baumann’s daughter swims the same events as New Zealand’s best swimmer, Lauren Boyle. If both make the 800 final in Rio, the boss of High Performance Sport New Zealand should be rooting for a New Zealand win. The perception could be that his family and Canada might come first. And, as we know, if a thing is perceived to be true, even when it is not, it may be real in its consequences.

Finally, in this post, it may not be fully appreciated why I dislike the involvement of the state in the management of New Zealand sport. I have spoken about how a free enterprise method of elite sport management produces superior results. Certainly seventeen years of the state’s management of New Zealand swimming has been stunningly unsuccessful. I have also discussed my philosophical opposition to the state’s involvement in something that is none of its business. Only a committed Marxist would argue that employing swimming coaches and training swimmers is a legitimate role of the state. New Zealand has crossed that line; the state in the form of Sport New Zealand is involved in swimming up to its eye balls, and that is wrong.

However I also believe there is a darker, more sinister, danger in the state’s involvement in elite, representative sport. And here it is.

Renford and New Zealand would be well advised to remember that on every occasion that the state has become invested in the performance of a sport’s team, to the extent that the New Zealand state is now involved in swimming – it has ended badly. Just look at how deeply Miskimmin and the New Zealand Government are into the sport of swimming.

Miskimmin funded the Moller investigation into swimming. That cost the Government $178,171. He paid the two authors, Moller $31,406 and Sue Suckling $42,014. Travel and accommodation incurred during the inquiry cost the Government $42,245 and administration cost a further $20,506. The Government, in the form of Sport New Zealand then effectively, wrote the sport’s constitution, appointed its High Performance Sport Controller, its CEO, its High Performance Director, its National Coach, its Chairman and two of its Board members.

Miskimmin and Renford even shifted the sport’s national administrators into the same building used by the athletes. And that is really, really dangerous. That’s what the East Germans did. I know because, after the Seoul Olympic Games, I employed the East German National Women’s Coach for three years. Mike was clear. Much of the abuse that characterized sport in East German swimming was aided by the physical closeness in Potsdam of GDR managers, administrators and performers. Those functions are best kept geographically separate. Administrators should stay well away.

The New Zealand Government’s representative, Miskimmin, rejected federal management by the membership of swimming in favour of control by the state. The reputation of the New Zealand state is now inextricably tied to how fast Lauren Boyle and her Millennium mates can swim. If Boyle fails – the state fails. When the state has been in that position in the past bad things have happened. The East Germans indulged in systematic drug abuse. China did the same. State run sports have seen it all, bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement. I do hope that the centralist, Government controlled path swimming in New Zealand has begun to travel does not end up in a very dark place. There was another way and we should have chosen it.