The previous Swimwatch post discussed the unease I felt at the praise heaped upon Sophie Pascoe by Swimming New Zealand. Not because Pascoe does not deserve praise. She certainly does. But was Swimming New Zealand sincere or were they simply trying to benefit from her reflected glory? In my opinion the motives of Swimming New Zealand are highly suspect.

That suspicion deepened today when I read the headline in this morning’s Swimming New Zealand’s report on yesterday’s events. The headline said. “#GC2018 DAY 4 WRAP – EDWARDS SMASHES PB BY 9.75s”. Their report discussed the two 200IM swims by Celyn Edwards where he improved his PB by a combined 9.75 seconds. On the one hand we should be delighted that para events are being given equivalent airtime; equal publicity. But we should also be wary of Swimming New Zealand’s motives. Is their delight at Edwards’ swims simply a ploy to avoid addressing the fact that with one day of swimming left the New Zealand non-para swimming team has won only one bronze medal? It would not be the first time the Swimming New Zealand PR machine has hidden from disasters – even if it does involve the callous use of para sport.

Is the reporting aimed at convincing an audience at High Performance Sport New Zealand that swimming is steaming ahead from one glorious achievement to another? Are they trying to sow a warm glow of success around the Swimming New Zealand regions? Sadly that is exactly what I think is going on. And I do not like the feeling of para-swimmers being used to protect overpaid and underperforming staff at Antares Place.

Talking about overpaid staff, I have written before about the errors that litter Swimming New Zealand’s reports. Most are best just ignored. But in the table below is a delightful example. In it Swimming New Zealand’s report on the women’s 100 freestyle heats. Something I’ve never seen before happened on the Gold Coast. Evidently, Carina Doyle and Laticia Transom both qualified 13^th for the semi-finals, in completely different times. At least that’s what Swimming New Zealand has told us.

Instead of sponging off the performance of para swimmers Cotterill and Johns’ time would be better spent addressing the problems in their own backyard. There is still a day to go and a lot can change in that time but as things stand now one bronze medal ranks this Commonwealth Games team as our 17^th equal worst result. From 1930 to the present – in 89 years the 2018 team is equal last on the table of Commonwealth Games results. Well done Cotterill and Johns. With a day to go, you have spent $14million on centralized training and have provided New Zealand with its equal worst result ever. I’m bloody sure me and five mates could have done better than that for $1.40. Eighty-nine years and $14million and we have come to this. How much embarrassment does it take for you to leave? But more of that after we see what tomorrow brings.

There were seven New Zealand swims in the morning heats on day five. One of the swims (14%) was a PB. Three swimmers progressed to the evening semi-finals.

There were three New Zealand swims in the evening session. None of these swims (0%) were PBs.

For day five, combining both sessions, New Zealand swimmers completed ten swims and recorded one PB (10%).

The tables below show each swimmer’s personal best time and the time swum in the Games on day five.

Bradlee Ashby

Corey Main

Lewis Clareburt

Bobbi Gichard

Daniel Hunter

Samuel Perry

Helena Gasson

New Zealand’s performance in the first four days of competition (excluding Paralympic swimmers) is summarized in the table below. The table also compares where New Zealand is at compared to the Swimwatch predictions made prior to the Games.