In a previous Swimwatch post I compared New Zealand relay times with times from the Commonwealth’s best swimming countries; Australia, the UK, Canada and South Africa. I discovered New Zealand is on average 2.5% slower than the third best of the big four and 4% behind the fastest Commonwealth country. Relay teams from these nations are out of sight, down the road, gone. Teams from the big four are so far ahead of New Zealand their swimmers will be out of the pool, dried and dressed before we finish.

Yes I know Steve Johns is a dizzy wobbling jelly of excitement at the very thought of our relay prospects. But that only reflects his lack of swimming knowledge. In Brisbane the big four are going to take Steve Johns’ relay trousers down and give him a spanking. And he will have deserved it. The selection policy, he promoted, is leaving the country open to sporting ridicule.

We have said the new Targeted Athlete and Coach Manager should address this travesty by withdrawing New Zealand’s relay entries. More of that later. But first, given that the New Zealand relay teams entered are not competitive with the big four swimming nations, who are New Zealand’s closest competitors? I noticed that on Facebook the very good, recently retired Waterhole swimmer, Phillip Ryan, asked the same question. He said, “Yes they may have the talent and speed, but how do our relay teams compare to other nations who will have swimmers who have qualified in individual events (swimming in relays).”

The answer is that the Steve Johns regime has brought New Zealand swimming to its knees. Humbled and humiliated we now compete with Hong Kong, Singapore and Trinidad for relay glory. The tables below show New Zealand’s relay performances compared to several third tier swimming nations. Hong Kong beats us in the Women’s 4×100 freestyle and the Women’s 4×100 Medley. Singapore is faster in the Men’s 4×100 freestyle and the Men’s 4×100 Medley.

Isn’t it incredible that the members of Swimming New Zealand (that’s you and me) spent $548,751 in 2016 paying the wages of Steve Johns and his mates and spent $3,517,746 in total and the result is we now compete with Singapore and Hong Kong.

The numbers don’t lie. Here is the sorry, sorry story.   Each table shows the country’s fastest four swimmers and the combined relay result.

Women’s 4×100 Freestyle

Men’s 4×100 Freestyle

Women’s 4×100 Medley

Men’s 4×100 Medley

It is worthwhile repeating the seriousness of the Swimming New Zealand position. The sport is on its knees. The move to decentralise the implementation of the elite program under a new Targeted Athlete and Coach Manager is a good one, long overdue and desperately needed.

The appointee deserves our support. How long that support lasts is going to depend on performance. Will decisions be made that bring about reform? Is New Zealand going to be more than a level three, bit player? The Targeted Athlete and Coach Manager’s first test is going to be his reaction to Commonwealth Games selection decisions that have weakened swimming. He needs to be positive and bold. We will wait and see. New Zealand has picked relay teams because Swimming New Zealand said they are, at least, third in the Commonwealth. If the Targeted Athlete and Coach Manager allows the teams to take part and, as appears likely, there are no medals then, understandably, our support is going to be very short lived.

The Targeted Athlete and Coach Manager position is a tough one. The appointee needs to be held to the highest performance standards. Those around him have failed the sport. Alone he is going to have to manage reform. His first test is this Commonwealth Games team selection. Is he going to allow the historic shortcomings of Swimming New Zealand to be paraded on the world stage or is he going to use the folly of others as a catalyst for reform. We shall see. Our support is going to be deeply dependent on the answer.

The title of this post is a quote from a Stuff website report on the medal prospects of New Zealand swimmers at the Commonwealth Games. Stuff interviewed Swimming New Zealand CEO, Steve Johns. There are some fascinating quotes; an insight into what, in my opinion, is a delusional alternative swimming universe. The table below copies the best of the Steve Johns’ wisdom. It will be fun to remind him of them in our end of Games’ report.

Of course my pessimism excludes the para swimmers. They are there on genuine merit and should perform very well.

But Steve Johns’ optimism for able-bodied success is, I fear, sadly misplaced. Where he gets the idea that the relays are a likely source of success I have no idea. The table below shows how far New Zealand’s fastest four swimmers are behind the Commonwealth’s first and third best teams.

Stuff tells us that those numbers could “cause a few surprises.” In Johns’ world they are a source of optimism and hope. Well, I have to confess. Steve Johns clearly knows something about swimming that I’ve missed. With the exception of one relay (1.1%) the New Zealand relay teams are more than 2% behind the third placed time. The average is 2.5% behind third. New Zealand relay teams are an average of 4% behind the fastest Commonwealth relay teams. I think that’s too big a gap. I’ve certainly never seen someone start that far behind and get up to win. But perhaps Steve Johns knows something we don’t.

The previous Swimwatch post on this subject made two key points. First the message being sent by the selection of non-qualified relay teams was bad for the sport and second that the new Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager should withdraw New Zealand’s relay entries from the Commonwealth Games. I am aware that many may view those claims as coming from the sport’s lunatic fringe. And so I will attempt to justify both assertions.

The selection of non-competitive relay teams sends a message to the swimming community that near enough is good enough; try hard, suck up to the establishment and the bureaucrats will bend over backwards to fit you into a relay team. The thought is not without merit. Without doubt Johns and his office mates are desperate to have as many swimmers as they can on the team. They are acutely aware that a team of two (Main and Ashby) make them look pathetic. Padding the numbers is in their self-interest. Their jobs depend on it.

They seem to be unaware that a thousand eleven and twelve year olds around the country watch the decisions they make and learn. Young New Zealand swimmers are being taught that you can get on a New Zealand relay team even when the team is thirteen seconds over 400 meters behind an Australian team. You can fly to a Commonwealth Games and swim in individual events even when you are nowhere near the qualifying standard. By selecting this team, in the way they have, Swimming New Zealand is promoting a culture of losing.

And the culture of a sport is so important to winning. The All Blacks normally win because they expect to win. Rugby in New Zealand had promoted a culture of success. And they have done it by not making ridiculous mistakes like swimming has this week. New Zealand swimming has been in a losing trough for a decade. The smell of defeat is everywhere. And this week the smell turned putrid. But, back to the point, the disaster is that a thousand young swimmers now accept that putrid stench as normal.

Examples of the fallout from a losing culture are easy to find. Just listen to the interviews with members of the Commonwealth Games team. They sound like something out of the emergency ward of a large city hospital. “Things are a bit tough because my ankle’s been injured.” “I’m not training well because of a sore back.” “Swimmers who go overseas are treated badly.” Moaning, groaning and complaining – not the best way to beat the world.

So what should be done? Swimming can continue along a path to oblivion or it can realise its mistake and take this opportunity to make a statement; to change the culture; to put in place a policy where a genuine prospect of success is the minimum standard expected of those who represent the country. How better to do that than have the new Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager withdraw New Zealand’s relay entries. Swimming should go to the Games with Main and Ashby and the para swimmers – period. The lesson that would send would be right, it would be powerful and it would be a message to us all, including the dropped swimmers, that representing New Zealand in swimming involves clearing a very high bar.

We will see what the new Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager is made of. Is his or her tenure going to be characterised by doing what is needed and what is right? Or is the appointee going to make easy choices because they are popular and don’t cause trouble? We will soon see. It would be educational for the person appointed to remember that Federations like Great Britain, Australia and the United States moved forward most when men like Sweetenham, Talbot and Schubert were calling the shots. Certainly none of them would have dreamed of sending a relay team to a Games that was thirteen seconds behind the opposition. We should judge the Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager by the same standard.

I spent a year recently coaching swimming for the Saudi Arabia Swimming Federation. And it just about drove me mad. On the world honesty index Saudi Arabia languishes in 62^nd place. New Zealand is first. I quickly worked out why Saudi Arabia scored so poorly. Every time I turned around someone was up to no good. It was everywhere. But it was especially obvious in the selection of national teams. The most important international event on the Saudi swimming calendar is the annual Gulf States Championships. Arab pride is on the line. When I arrived the Saudi Federation had just published the qualifying standards for the 2016 GCC meet. There were “A” times and “B” consideration times. It looked very professional but it was all a sham. In the first week I realized that very few swimmers were capable of swimming the times. The schedule had been published simply to make someone in the Saudi Federation Head Office look good. And sure enough, as the competition date got closer and the Saudi GCC team had only a couple of swimmers, I began to get frantic phone calls asking me to supervise time-trials for swimmers, from God knows where, who I was told, were on the verge of swimming glory. No one ever qualified.

A week before the meet the Saudi Federation announced a team of about thirty swimmers. I don’t know how many had swum the qualifying time; certainly no more than four or five. The others were picked to make the Saudi Federation look good in the opening ceremony. It was classic sporting corruption and is why Saudi swimming is as bad as it is. The message to every swimmer was, “You don’t need to swim fast. We will find a way to select you anyway.” And it has had an effect. The Saudi men’s national 100 meter championship was won, a couple of weeks ago, in 58 seconds.

While dishonesty on that scale can be expected in Saudi Arabia, it is not the way things should be done in New Zealand; except it seems in Swimming New Zealand. Oh, Swimming New Zealand is more cunning than the Saudi officials. When the New Zealand qualifying times were published Swimming New Zealand slipped into the qualifying booklet a series of carefully crafted “get-out-of-jail” clauses. For example;

“The SNZ Selection Panel will consider Athletes who has or have a track record of sufficient quality and depth that the selection panel believes demonstrates that the Nominated Athlete(s) will be competitive at the Games and will perform creditably in that Individual Event or Relay Event.”

“The SNZ Selection panel may consider Athletes who have not met the requirements but who is/are considered by the SNZ Selection Panel to have demonstrated the ability to meet the Over-Riding Nomination Criteria.”

In other words, if Swimming New Zealand are in a corner and no swimmers are fast enough, they can pick anyone they like. It’s a sham of Saudi proportions. Except in New Zealand it is given a veneer of respectability. I’m not sure which is worse, Saudi open dishonesty or the Swimming New Zealand cover-up.

And the New Zealand relay selection policy is equally corrupt. Swimming New Zealand has added ten unqualified swimmers into the team using the relay selection procedure. The criterion for relays is third in the Commonwealth. At the time of publishing the standards, there were not even three Commonwealth countries with relay times in two events. As long as the New Zealand swimmers could blow bubbles underwater, they were going to be good enough.

But now that various Commonwealth countries have swum their trials we can calculate where New Zealand stands. The table below shows New Zealand’s actual relay position. The table calculates our place by listing the four fastest swimmers for each relay and adding a 2.4 seconds change-over allowance. Remember, when you are looking at these numbers, the position could be worse. I have shown figures for just one UK team. The reality is there will be four teams representing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Two or three could easily be faster than New Zealand.

Women’s 4×100 Freestyle

Men’s 4×100 Freestyle

Women’s 4×100 Medley

Men’s 4×100 Medley

Women’s 4×200 Free

Men’s 4×200 Freestyle

That’s what the numbers say. In two relays New Zealand is fourth. In the others the New Zealand team is fifth and last. No relay meets the selection criteria of being third ranked in the Commonwealth. Ten swimmers are going to Brisbane in a Saudi style scam. But the real problem is not that swimmers are on the team that should not be there. The real problem is the message their selection sends the sport.

The Swimming New Zealand Board has just taught ten swimmers that near enough is good enough. All that’s needed to be selected is to get close enough and Swimming New Zealand will find a way to get you on the airplane. Champions do not come from a “close enough will do” environment. The Board of Swimming New Zealand has committed the most serious sin of all. They have lowered the achievement bar. They have rewarded poor performance. And they too will be rewarded in kind.

I have had four Olympians train in my team, one of them a gold medallist, and they would all see the actions of Swimming New Zealand in selecting this team as an insult. None of them would accept the selection. They had way too much pride for that. There are some rules that cannot be broken.

Let me tell you a story that illustrates the difference between the decisions a winner takes and the dead-beats that populate Antares Place. A few years ago in Berlin Jane Copland broke a New Zealand age group 100 IM record. I told Arthur Lydiard about the swim and he said, “Don’t submit the paperwork for the record. Tell Jane only an open record will be ratified.”

I told Jane her age group swim was not fast enough. When she set an open record I would submit the application. Six months later Jane set a New Zealand Open 200 metre breaststroke record.

Compare the lesson in Arthur’s story with the “unearned-candy” policy followed by Swimming New Zealand today. That’s why Arthur coached ten Olympic medals and this Swimming New Zealand Board has none.

Of course Steve Johns is being quoted in the media as saying he is sure the team will perform brilliantly. He does himself no favours; selling that “never-never-land” fairy tale. Swimming New Zealand may be about to appoint a new Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager. After this selection fiasco the first target of his or her attention should be the staff of the organisation, especially the boss. And after that, if it was me, I’d scratch all New Zealand’s Commonwealth relay entries. They have not been earned. The lesson learned from that action would give us a chance in Tokyo. Continue with this sort of selection policy and there is no chance. Why? Because at the Olympic Games near enough is not good enough.

I am told that Steve Johns the CEO of Swimming New Zealand has distributed an email to the “regions and coaches”. The email provides an update on “the review and refresh of the SNZ HP Strategy”. Before discussing the content of the email I want to take a moment to be a bit selfish. You see I would have liked to be included in Johns’ update. His email was sent to “regions and coaches”. I think I qualify as a coach. I have an ASCA International Level Five coaching qualification. Certainly I coach the current men’s Auckland Champion at 50 meters freestyle and silver medallist at 100 meters freestyle and 50 meters butterfly. Evidently that’s not good enough to qualify as a coach recipient of Johns’ news report.

But more importantly, in the email, Johns says that the plans Swimming New Zealand are putting in place are the product of “a lot feedback received relating to our existing programme that is consistently clear that the existing centralised approach needs attention.” I suspect even my worst enemies would accept that one of the loudest and certainly the longest critic of the existing centralized approach has been the Swimwatch blog. That effort should merit being included in the conversation.

The decision of Steve Johns to strike me off the distribution list is a perfect example of what I despise about the management of that organization. Their reaction is petty; the product of small men motivated only by the thought that David Wright was nasty to me so I’m going to ban him from my email list. That’s not business management. That’s some twelve year old defriending a Facebook contact. That’s not looking at the merits of the issues. That’s personality politics. Good management engages its critics and considers their views. And that’s why few of us have ever accused Swimming New Zealand of good management. Rather than engaging their critics Swimming New Zealand turn bitter and delete their names from email distribution lists.

So what does the email tell us about the “refresh” of the Swimming New Zealand High Performance Strategy? Here are the highlights.

1. The review is going to lead to “changes in the way Swimming New Zealand operates and delivers its High Performance programme from early 2018”.

Comment – Good and about time. Swimwatch has been asking for just that very action for about six years. Whenever anything this bad lasts for six years, there is not much in the way of credit to go around. A normal human reaction is to be pleased change is on its way but to ask, ‘What the hell took you so long?”

2. The new programme “will have at its core, a move away from the centralised approach to a decentralised targeted programme that will look to provide support, guidance and leadership to identified targeted athletes and coaches regardless of where they live and train.”

Comment – Good without qualification. I never thought I would see the day that the word “decentralisation” would appear as a positive term in a Swimming New Zealand email. But it has and for that we should be thankful.

3. “This programme will be led by a newly appointed Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager.”

Comment – Good. In Swimwatch we have always called this position the job of a Head Coach. However, “Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager” describes the function better and is exactly what the top swimming person in Swimming New Zealand should be doing. I will be interested to see who Swimming New Zealand appoints. He or she will need to know a lot about swimming. The organization is going to be relying on that person to repair a neglected and broken infrastructure. The person doing that job is going to have to know enough about elite swimming preparation to provide us all with the guidance and direction necessary to nurture successful international swimmers.

4. The new program will mean that Swimming New Zealand will not be replacing the National Head Coach position.

Comment – Good. The diversified approach and the Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager means there is no reason to have a poolside coach. That function in Swimming New Zealand has never worked and so will not be missed.

5. The new changes to the High Performance Strategy will be communicated “where possible by face-to-face presentations.”

Comment – Wow, “face-to-face” presentations! I’d be over the moon. Talking to a real person; what a change. But right now I’m not getting my hopes up. I’d be happy just to see my name put back on an email list.

Everyone involved in New Zealand swimming should look on this as positive news. The devil, of course, is in the detail. Implementation is going to be critical. But the idea of decentralised targeted preparation is right. The policy direction suggested by this email is a good one.

I like the Millennium Institute pool. It is spotlessly clean. It is the best pool I’ve been to anywhere for looking after fitness swimmers and serious athletes. The café is the finest pool café in the country. But best of all the staff are incredible. Every morning the manager cheerfully says, “Gidday, good to see you.” The receptionists seem genuinely pleased to welcome you to the pool. And the life-guards combine their duty to protect lives with customer relations better than in any pool I know.

In fact it is one of those life-guards I want to tell you about. Her name is Annmarie Temo. Like the other Millennium life-guards, most days, she stopped to say hello and ask how Eyad’s training was progressing. She even came to watch Eyad swim in the New Zealand National Short Course Championships and seemed genuinely pleased when he was recently the first Auckland swimmer in the Men’s Super-Final of the 50 metres freestyle Auckland Championship.

But then I noticed something strange. Besides her welcome and general small talk she would occasionally comment on Eyad’s stroke, or the speed of his training. She even suggested some drills that might help improve his freestyle turns. Even more surprising her observations seemed to have merit. What, I thought, does this life-guard know about senior competitive swimming. And then one morning Eyad was doing a long set of 100 meter repetitions. Annmarie walked by and asked, “What speed is he swimming?”

“That last one was in 1.03.” I said.

“Oh, I used to swim backstroke in that time. But my 50s were better,” she replied and wandered off.

Wow, I thought, I’ve never heard of this life-guard and yet she could swim 1.03 for 100 meters backstroke? Who is Annmarie Temo? And so over the course of the next two or three weeks I asked about her career in swimming. I found out she is twenty years old. She did all her swimming in Australia. At eighteen she retired because of the hurt “swimming politics” had caused. Her story sounded genuine. Frequently swimming officials have no idea of the pain they cause.

And then Annmarie came up with another surprise. She explained that she was cutting back her life-guard hours so that she could start university study. “Would it be all right, she asked, “if I swam with Eyad three times a week?”

“Of course,” I said and a week ago Annmarie completed her first training swim in two years.

Good swimmers have something about the way they do things that sets them apart. They have a feel of the water, a way of moving that is different. Good swimmers make it look so incredibly easy; almost lazy. But it’s not lazy, it’s talent. Rhi Jeffrey has it; so do Toni Jeffs, Nichola Chellingworth, Jane Copland, Joe Skuba and Eyad Masoud. And now add a new name to that list. After two strokes quite obviously Annmarie Temo has it; whatever it is. She has it in heaps.

So I decided to investigate. How good was this retired swimming life-guard? The table below shows you what I found. Talk about a real life personification of the Thomas Gray poem.

“Full many a flow’r is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of his fields withstood;

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.”

Check out the numbers.  See what you think. The table shows where Annmarie’s two year old personal best times would rank if they were swum in New Zealand today.

I thought the long course 50 meters backstroke, 100 meters backstroke and 50 meters freestyle all ranking in New Zealand’s top 10 and the 50 meters freestyle being in the top three was especially surprising and especially good. I know Annmarie is determined her new adventure back into swimming will not involve competition and that is fine by me. There is no question about the fun it is to help talented people, even if it is only three times a week. And so I hope she never finds out. But wouldn’t it be great if this fine talent did decide to give it another crack. If she does I won’t have to tell you. She might even make it to the pages of the Swimming New Zealand website. It would not surprise; talent is forever.