By David

Absolute unreserved congratulations to Lauren Boyle: what a fantastic 1500 meter swim in a world best time. She continues to prove herself as a true class act – an athlete New Zealand can be very proud of. But is it a world record? Unfortunately, of course it’s not. No honest referee could possibly sign the FINA World Record Application Form. Here is what questions 13 and 17 on that form ask the referee to confirm.

WORLD RECORD APPLICATION FORM

DEMANDE D’HOMOLOGATION DE RECORD DU MONDE

13. Was the water still?

17. In my opinion all FINA Rules have been met

Let’s look at each of these questions; was the water still? A week ago (i.e. before the swim), I submitted a facility’s protest to Swimming New Zealand through Auckland Swimming. The protest was posted on Swimwatch in the article titled “Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre”. Given the turn of events created by Lauren Boyle’s swim it may be worth reading. However in summary the protest was based on the following faults in the Wellington pool.

1. In every event, male and female, there is a consistent variation between the times taken to swim in one direction compared to the other direction.
2. It is reasonable to expect that “flat” strokes (breaststroke and butterfly) will be more affected by swimming into a current. This is confirmed by the data where the variation between the “into current” and “with current” lengths in these strokes is an average of 0.84 seconds per length.
3. Rotating strokes (backstroke and freestyle) show a significant but lower variation of 0.67 seconds per length.
4. The average variation over all events between the “into current” and “with current” lengths is 0.74 seconds per 25m length. What that means is that on average New Zealand’s best swimmers consistently took 0.74 of a second longer to swim one way in the Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre than in the other direction. By any standard that meets the definition of “appreciable”; appreciable in terms of variation and its only explanation – a current.

Since submitting the protest Boyle has recorded her world best time. I was interested to read that she swam the race taking 17 strokes in one direction and 18 in the other. A current maybe? The comment was left by “FGT” and on the linked-to article.

Clearly, faced with this hard, provable data there is no referee in the world who could answer, “Yes” to the question, “Was the water still?” Or is there? Remember this is Swimming New Zealand we are talking about. This organization has lied and swept under the carpet before. Will they do it again? We shall see.

And then there is the second question – “In my opinion all FINA Rules have been met.”

As we already know the presence of a raging current in the Wellington pool rules out a positive answer to that question. But, there is more. Two years ago I filed another protest about the Wellington Pool. On this occasion my concern was, and it still is, that the pool at the shallow end was well below the minimum depth required by FINA rules. Here is what Swimwatch said at the time.

In that case it was most certainly my initiative that caused the storm clouds to gather. At its shallow end the Kilbirnie Pool does not comply with the minimum depth required by FINA Rules. In fact the pool is bloody dangerous. Along with my $50 filing fee, I lost the protest. However, shortly after the Championships, Swimming New Zealand received a rap over the knuckles from FINA. Events, FINA said, held in the Kilbirnie Pool ran the risk of not being recognized by the world governing body. FINA’s judgment made the officials that discarded my protest look stupid.

In association with the Wellington City Council, and at a cost of what I’ve been told was $250,000, Swimming New Zealand altered the Kilbirnie Pool so that competitions could be held at the deep end of the main pool. I might have lost my $50 but New Zealand swimmers were safe. At the next short course National Championships the races all began at the deep end of the Wellington Pool. FINA’s rules had been satisfied in full. The risk of broken necks, grazed torsos, black eyes and worse had been eliminated.

Of course I did not get any thanks for initiating the change. Quite the contrary in fact. Chris Moller and Sue Suckling, the authors of the 2012 Swimming New Zealand founding document, called me and interrogated my motives. For thirty minutes Perry Moller Mason tried to prove that my Kilbirnie Pool protest was frivolous; founded solely on a need to cause trouble; a baseless distraction; proof that I was a malcontent hell bent on causing harm. I thought Moller was pathetically ignorant. If he got a kick out of questioning my motives; if he thought the history of my protest was more important that the safety of New Zealand swimmers, he was stupid and of no concern to me. Wellington was having to pay $250,000 to provide a safe pool and that was fine by me.

Or at least that’s what I thought until tonight.

Unbeknown to me the idiots that run Swimming New Zealand and the Wellington Swimming Region continued to run local meets from the pool’s shallow end. I told them it was wrong. FINA told them it was wrong. But when we weren’t there, when our backs were turned they used the shallow end of the pool anyway. The deep end was reserved for the National Championships when the troublemakers were in town. These people are disgusting. Genuine safety concerns were either neglected or by-passed in their obsession to prove me wrong.

Well last week their chickens came home to roost. You see last weekend the Wellington Short Course Championships were held in the shallow end of the Kilbirnie Pool. I understand one club had four swimmers hit the bottom of the pool. One of them, an eleven year old girl, had her front teeth smashed out – gone, her teeth lying on the tiles at the shallow end of the Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre.  Wellington City Council, Renford, Moller and Layton take note – I paid $50 to warn you that competitive swimmers diving into the shallow end of your pool was dangerous and you let the Wellington Swimming Region do it anyway. In my view, that’s criminal neglect. And I hope you are made to pay in full measure. Another one of the injured, a ten year old girl, grazed her face during the start of a 200 meter breaststroke race. She swam on to achieve an eighteen second personal best time. Instead of delight, she burst into tears that mixed with her cuts and blood. She hadn’t stopped because she thought her coach and family would be disappointed.

And so Swimming New Zealand, Wellington Swimming and the Wellington City Council have been told for two years that their pool does not comply with FINA rules. For two years they have harassed the author of Swimwatch and ignored our advice. And now, because of their own stupidity, they can’t honestly sign a world record application form. There is no still water in their pool and the pool depth is way too shallow. The application simply cannot be submitted. But this is a Swimming New Zealand capable of just about anything. Let’s see what they do.

We warned them the “would pay in full measure”. Hopefully that day has arrived.

However, if they are honest and don’t sign the form Renford, Villanueva and the leaders of Swimming Wellington should be sacked for ignoring our advice and our protests. If they are not honest and sign the forms they should be sacked as well, for being dishonest and ignoring our advice and our protests.

Either way if the price of getting that pool fixed is a lost world record, then so be it. Something really bad was going to happen before Swimming New Zealand and Swimming Wellington did anything. A set of broken teeth was not enough to cause them to change. I’m just glad it’s a lost world record and not some young swimmer lying in a hospital bed with a broken back. Faced with that choice I’m picking even Lauren Boyle might be pleased with the fate of her lost world record.