A Month Away

By Jane and David

David: When we relaunched Swimwatch in 2006, we promised never to abandon it again. Sadly, the past month has been a bit of a fail on our part, as Jane has been traveling the world doing her real job and I'm not good at working the publishing software, as elementary as Jane says it is. To be more accurate, Jane has been in Sydney, Australia, speaking at an SEO and internet marketing conference. She also stopped for a week in Auckland, New Zealand on her way back to Seattle.

Jane: My trip to Australia, whilst having nothing to do with swimming, was an incredible trip down memory lane. The conference I attended (SMX Sydney, for those of you who are into search engine optimisation. What? None of you?) took place in a building at Luna Park. Everyone who's been swimming in Australia knows that Luna Park is right beside the North Sydney Pool.

In Swimwatch's opinion, the North Sydney Pool is the greatest swimming pool of all time. I didn't list it first on my "Best Least Recognised Pools" post, but I would now. I'd forgotten just how fantastic it is. The closest I came to swimming in the pool again was going to dinner at Aqua, a restaurant that now overlooks the pool from the fifty-metre end. As you can see from this picture, taken before the New South Wales swimming championships in early 1996, the restaurant has not always been there. In fact, twelve years ago, it seems that the place was little more than a ratty office. Underneath the white and red striped canopy at the end of the pool now resides one of Sydney's better restaurants.

This is what is there now.

For anyone else who's vaguely interested, there are quite a few more of my pictures of the views of the pool on Flickr; this links to the first picture taken at Aqua. One word of warning: it's probably not good pre-practice food. And don't drink as much port as I did, either.

David: Jane tells me Auckland has changed in the six years she has been away. Much more impressive, she says, with lots of waterfront cafés selling New Zealand’s increasingly popular wines. Boutique shops are preferred to concrete jungle malls. All that sounds like progress.

Certainly New Zealand’s swimming made progress during the month. They finally won a race that mattered. Moss Burmester won the 200m Butterfly at the World SC Championships in Manchester, England; very well done Moss. Never again will I be able to say that Moss’ coach Jan Cameron has never won a decent championship. The country is still worse off than when Loader, Kingsman, Simcic, Bray, Winter, Langrell and Jeffs were winning medals at similar events, but any win for Cameron is a good win. In his early career, Moss had an excellent coach called Clive Power who clearly laid an important early foundation. Cameron is fortunate to inherit such a well coached product.

I see New Zealand’s sport funding agency, Sparc, hasn’t changed. This time they are writing threatening letters to New Zealand Rugby League telling the sport how to run its affairs. It’s all the usual blackmail, “Do what we say or we will cut off your funding.” They only give the sport about $200,000 a year. I’d tell them to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. It’s hard to have respect for an organisation whose Chief Executive insists on abusing the Queen’s English. His comments on the Rugby League situation include the following gems, “[they need] to put their sport on a proper footing going forwards" and “they need help to move forward by identifying key issues” and, “Sparc would need to consider how justified continuing investment going forward would be." That “going forward” stuff is all so unnecessary; a sure sign you’re talking to a guy of little substance. The head of New Zealand Rugby League made the issues most telling comment, “They are too powerful to ignore." Isn’t that the truth? It’s sad though when might replaces right like it has in New Zealand’s sport funding.

While we've been away, Swimwatch has continued to receive its share of loony messages. For some reason, one genius decided to have a crack at Jane and wrote the following:

You're just bitter because you weren't that fast of a swimmer and are mad at yourself. You could look at the positive things like the amazing work ethic that every swimmer leaves the sport with. Or you could examine yourself and decide whether or not you actually put it all on the line and gave the sport your all. If you had you would have found out things about yourself that you would never find out otherwise.”

Although the comment was “anonymous”, I recognise the writing style and can confirm it is the product of personal failure; a not unusual reaction. For the record, Jane was a four time national open or age group New Zealand record holder, three times national open women’s champion, Division One NCAA Championship qualifier, Caribbean Regional Champion and record holder, Pan Pacific Game’s representative and an Oceania Games silver medalist. In the course of accumulating that record she swam 27,548 kilometers, that’s an average of 53,000 meters every week for 11 years. What sort of insulting, stupid fool says "Or you could examine yourself and decide whether or not you actually put it all on the line and gave the sport your all" to someone who put in that sort of work and achieved those sorts of results? Shame on you, whoever you are.

Here, in Florida, things are pretty normal. The team has just begun their summer racing program. Andrew and Skuba were first and second in the men’s 50m free last weekend at a local meet; a pleasing result for the season’s first race. They will race in four more meets before heading off to the European Mare Nostrum tour and meets in Monte Carlo, Canet and Barcelona. That’s where the big boys come out to play. It will be fun to find out how our two get on. The Americans are an amazingly generous people. They give willingly and without condition. We needed to raise money to help with the cost of going to Europe. The response has been humbling; thank you. Many of the Master’s swimmers are preparing for their triathlon season. Most notably Greg has the Hawaiian Ironman this year. Darcy continues to win her age group in every event she enters. She is an amazing athlete. I guess that’s what 52 looks like these days.

Next weekend our team hosts a Florida Gold Coast Sub JO Meet. That’s the beginning level of competition around here. Through the course of a year all the local clubs share the hosting of one of these events. They are well run and a terrific introduction to swimming competition. The only change I’d like to see are ribbons being given for personal best swims rather than for first, second and third. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against winning and losing. I just think establishing a culture of “I did my best” early in a swimmers career is a good thing.

It’s good to be back.

Verschärfte Vernehmung

By David

Swimwatch is a website that primarily concerns itself with swimming matters. Occasionally we have strayed and have discussed the New Zealand All Blacks or world class running. Even more occasionally, we have dabbled in politics and religion. You may recall I wrote a piece supporting Hillary Clinton’s bid to become President. Jane added her support for Barack Obama. However, having now seen more of Obama, I think she may have a point. Certainly the country needs either of them compared to the right wing alternative. The best writing on Swimwatch is the piece Jane did about life in the US Virgin Islands. It’s called Licentious Phoenix. I wish I could write with just a fragment of that feeling and accuracy. But the Swimwatch primary mission is still swimming.

Except this month, when an event occurred that is so despicable, so devoid of all that’s decent; an event so pervasive that its fallout will eventually affect every corner of society, even our watery sphere. Remember this date; on Saturday, March 8 2008, the United States endorsed the use of torture. By signing a veto of the Bill from Congress banning torture President Bush has approved its use. The President brutalized his society.

And it will have an effect. Condoning State violence will eventually affect us all. There will be more murders. More college freshmen will die with a hole in their head. The country that already boasts the world largest prison population will need more cells. "Might is right" has been sanctioned. Someday we will be affected too. Coaches will increasingly accept the philosophy of winning at all costs. If it takes steroids to get it done, why not? Officials with avarice for power will hold hearings and pass verdicts without advising the subject of the hearing. They will disqualify without properly recognizing the right to protest. Parents will punish poor performance. State brutality perverts everyone.

Our State does not call it torture of course, preferring, “Advanced Interrogation Techniques”. I wondered where that abuse of the English language came from. Do you know what I found? This is what I found in Wikipedia.

“The former editor of The New Republic Andrew Sullivan claimed that "enhanced interrogation" bears remarkable resemblance to the techniques the Gestapo called "Verschärfte Vernehmung," for which some of them faced prosecution after World War II and were "found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death." Besides the similarity of the practices, the German term "verschärfte Vernehmung" may be translated as "enhanced interrogation".

A 1948 Norwegian court case described the use of hypothermia identical to the reports from Guantanamo Bay. The defense used by the Nazis for applying the techniques "is almost verbatim that of the Bush administration." Most notably the concept of unlawful enemy combatant is invoked to justify its implementation on "insurgent prisoners out of uniform". The now familiar ticking time bomb scenario as a rationale for allowing torture had its precursor in the Gestapo's "Third degree" measures. But while the Nazis' interrogative methods were found to be torture, The New York Times writes that the Allies' methods at the time were far more effective and far less abusive than those the United States uses now.”

It remains to their eternal shame that Clinton and Obama were too busy getting themselves elected, to get back to Washington and vote for the ban-on-torture measure. It goes to show the extent to which our society has already accepted force, pain and evil. But if you think their neglect was bad consider this: John McCain did turn up and voted against the Bill. Six years of being tortured by the citizens of the last country the United States invaded and McCain learned nothing. Whether through their neglect or action, those wanting to guide this nation through the next four years have made a pretty poor start.

But not as bad as the George W. Bush finish. We all know he prides himself on his “Christian” values. It would do him well to read Mathew 7-16: “Ye shall know them by their fruits” or any one of a thousand other New Testament verses counseling mercy ahead of vengeance. Romans 12-19: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, for it is written, Vengeance is mine; saith the Lord.”

Well President Bush, your actions in this event are not Christian or legal. They have brutalized and diminished you and your nation and maybe eventually our sport. For that you are not forgiven. We doubt that St. Peter will be that impressed either.

Ten Things I Find Stupid About Swimming

By Jane

I've sort of taking up the position of skeptical retired writer here, and whilst I'm probably perfectly qualified to write about more valuable topics, I quite enjoy bringing the ex-swimmer's perspective to a blog about swimming commentary.

Yesterday marked the two year anniversary of me quitting swimming. In the first few months afterwards, I began to recognise some things about the sport that are pretty strange, and after having recently attended my first swimming competition (this time as a spectator) since March 2006, I've thought of a few more things that are a bit... odd.

1. No surprises here. The cheering.

It's silly. Very rarely did it get me excited about swimming and most of the time, having to partake in such ridiculous behaviour was just demeaning. And no matter how good of a backside you have, no one looks good doing that. Attending a swim meet recently also proved to me that there's only one thing worse than being part of these cheers, and that's watching them. Call me a spoilsport or a bad team member if you will: I'd have rather saved my energy for the 400IM.


2. Warm-up protocol.

Coaches world-wide have the idea that they know how you should warm up for a race. Generally, their ideas are pretty solid, but it's now beyond me why every swimmer in the world should be able to warm up for a race in some what the same way. The best two races I've ever competed in were swum on about 700 meters warm up. I, and my coaches, should have learned something from this.


3. The idea that swimmers never reach the age of 18.

I was 22 when I quit, but plenty of people have carried on swimming far past this age. It's stunning how swimmers are almost always treated like irresponsible fourteen year olds, well into their twenties and sometimes beyond. It's a special coach who can treat a team like the adults they often are. If they make childish mistakes, they should have to deal with them like all adults who make childish mistakes.


4. Training camp.

I. Hate. Training camp. Yep, that one is still in the present tense. It will take me a few more years to get over the horror that is training camp. Dress it up any way you like, call it "winter training," "training trip", "The University of Randomtown's Annual Trip to West Palm Beach", it's still training camp and it still sucks a lot. I have only ever enjoyed one training camp, and that was when my college team went to Miami.

Miami was made bearable by a few interconnected factors, such as the proximity of Miami to my parents' house, the training being not quite as deathly hard as during previous years, good weather and the fact that my boyfriend happened to be in town. That was also frowned upon, but contrary to popular belief, my coaches didn't have any authority over where he spent his holidays.

Training camp was the bane of my existence for my entire swimming career. The above link details some of my objections to it, but I'll leave you with an image of how damn happy my classmates and I were at the end of training camp, senior year.


5. Making national holidays a living hell.

Following on from training camp nightmares, swimming programmes often take a national holiday (Veterans Day, Queen's Birthday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, etc) to mean that a miniature training camp should occur. Training will be twice as hard, twice as long and will basically go on all day. Because it's a national holiday, you'll be allowed to sleep in until 9am, but practice will take place at 9:30, weights at 12 and another swim workout at 2pm.

Why is this necessary? If it had been up to me, I'd have gone swimming at the usual time (most likely 6am), enjoyed my day off school or work and gone back to the pool at 3:30. As per usual. As opposed to most people, swimmers often dread national holidays. And don't even get me started on Thanksgiving.


6. Never shaving.

I understand this to a point. It feels great to shave down for a big meet and if you're a particularly hairy person, the lack of leg hair probably makes a difference when you take it off. I wouldn't know. But really. Come on. Never shaving your legs is just gross. Upon quitting, I shaved my legs every day for a month, just because I could.

Some coaches and swimmers treat shaving - or not shaving - as a combination of sacrifice, ritual and religious adherence to the groupthink that the team who's hairy together, wins together. Thinking about shaving your legs for a Christmas party at which you'd love to break out a cute new red cocktail dress? Don't expect to make your NCAA cut, traitor.

Yuck. Whatever. Give me a razor.


7. Small fins.

Don't look at me like that. You know the ones. People call them "zoomers." Those little fins that are barely bigger than your feet:

Some people swear by them, but I can't stand them. To me, they achieve nothing but negating all feel of the water I have with my feet. Everyone knows about the talent associated with manual feel of the water - the ability to put your hand into the water and just know what to do with it. Feet are the same, and shoving them into zoomers is a sure-fire way to render a functioning pair of legs totally useless. I kicked slower with zoomers.


8. Training for punishment's sake.

Most swimmers have had this happen. You are given a set with time constraints. If you don't make certain times for certain intervals, you're forced to do more and more until you complete the whole set. Obviously, you get tireder and thus reaching the required speeds becomes harder.

This is ridiculous. I don't know (read: doubt) if any coaches read this, but please, for the love of God, don't partake in this idiocy. I've known swimmers' entire seasons to be ruined by these sets. Training shouldn't necessarily be a constant enjoyment, but it should never be a punishment.


9. Long course snobbery.

This isn't quite the problem in the United States that it is elsewhere, solely due to the high school and NCAA, twenty-five yard system. We get to watch world-beaters take short course swimming very seriously. In various other countries, namely the United Kingdom and Australia, there are people who'd have you believe a short course world record was worth less than a participation ribbon at a long course chocolate fish carnival.

Bite me. There is no good reason why a great swim in a twenty-five meter or yard pool is not as valid as a great swim in a fifty-meter pool. Do not tell me about which prestigious swim meets take place in fifty meter pools; it makes no difference to the legitimacy of good short course performances.


10. The following disqualification rules.

Some race rules baffle me:

1. Thou shalt not kick on one's front when completing a backstroke turn. This isn't an NCAA violation, only a FINA rule. Turning onto your front and kicking into a wall during a backstroke race is a fantastic way to slow down. That it's against the rules in FINA but not banned in NCAA competition speaks to its pointlessness.
2. Thou shalt not move on the blocks. We've discussed this one before, questioning whether or not it really is a rule. However, I always found that being unsteady on the blocks was a disadvantage. Not only this, but I could never see my competitors, so it didn't matter to me whether or not they were moving.

Whether you agree with me or not, I'm sure there are other ridiculous swimming rules, norms, traditions and phenomena that its participants don't understand. I'd love to know where some of these originated, but at the same time, I'm pretty sure they'll never change.

Nude But Not Degraded

By David

One of our triathletes is a second year student at Florida Atlantic University. She’s doing a course on feminism and has been asked to write a five thousand word paper on a female role model. I thought Swimwatch might help. The tutor has asked that the work of the chosen woman be contrasted with the images of exploited women found in glossy magazines and television advertising. FAU clearly wants its young students to end their course as pious apostles of Madame Curie, Florence Nightingale and Indira Gandhi. It seems the works of Pamela Anderson, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell are not viewed too favourably in the feminist corridors of FAU.

But I wonder if this is actually right. I don’t mean to denigrate the contribution of Madame Curie, Florence Nightingale or Indira Gandhi. They are remarkable women who touched and improved the condition of their generation, their gender and their world. It was and still is true that the road walked by women of ability is harsh and more difficult than their male peers.

Even in swimming, that’s true. The attitude of men is fairly easy to identify. Men in the training pool risk heart attacks trying to prevent a Rhi Jeffrey or a Darra Torres from passing them. Day after day, these women swim alongside men who feel threatened by a female and immediately increase pace to prevent her passing, their neck and shoulders bright red as they strain to avoid the inevitable. They would be far less likely do this if a male was trying to pass.

Weight training is where you see the most extreme examples of men’s ingrained belief in their superiority. Go to a gym and try a 100kg Lat Pull Down or a 40kg elbow raise. I’ve helped female swimmers who have lifted these weights. But the reaction of men is fascinating. The young bloods that surreptitiously set their own weights to the same level and then strain and struggle to do the lift. Many well-meaning males warn female swimmers of the dangers they face lifting heavy weights. They’d never bother if it was a man.

But my reservation with FAU is the implied criticism of Pamela Anderson, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. You see, if it is right that women are degraded by what these women do, then women today should be more vilified than they were one hundred years ago. After all, in those days no one appeared in a bikini trying to sell anything. When women were denied the right to vote, there were precious little of the fun and games Pamela Anderson gets up to these days. The lot of women appears to have improved as the behavior of some women has become more unchecked. Perhaps their liberated behavior has helped.

It also seems true that the quantity of clothes women wear or what they advertise has little to do with their social freedoms. Some of the most clothed women in the world live in the most awful repression. Pamela Anderson may show a few too many tattoos for sensitive eyes, but it does not prevent her society educating her or giving her the right to vote. That’s more than you can say for the jilbab clad women of Afghanistan.

My swimming role model for the FAU essay will be Amanda Beard, the current Olympic 200m breaststroke champion and subject of a recent Playboy photo shoot. My guess is the feminist staff at FAU will share USA Swimming’s horror at Amanda Beard’s Playboy spread. They too will mumble about swimming being a family sport and photographs that degrade women. Can’t you just hear it? “She was such a nice girl when she was fourteen and won all those medals in Atlanta. It’s such a shame. Just look at her now. In Playboy – of all things!” But again I’m not so sure.

I’m certainly not suggesting that any other swimmer appear in Playboy. But I am pleased Amanda Beard had the opportunity and the right to do the article. FAU and some swimming officials may not like it, but what Amanda Beard did was not degrading. On the contrary, it’s a thing called freedom and that’s worth hanging on to, even if it does involve the occasional good looking swimmer appearing in Playboy. Posing for Playboy may or may not be good for women or the sport of swimming; having the freedom to appear if you want to is very good for both. USA Swimming deserves credit for not trying to censure Beard for her Playboy adventure. I know of more than one Association around the world who would not have been so restrained. And that would have been degrading.

Well done USA Swimming; pity about our “D” in the feminist class at FAU though.

Heartaches By The Number

By David

New Zealand has had to settle a king-size sporting problem this weekend. The world’s two best single scull rowers live in New Zealand. This weekend, Mahe Drysdale and Rob Waddell compete in trials on Lake Karapiro for the one place available to New Zealand in this year’s Beijing Olympic Games. Hopefully by the time I’m finished writing this piece I will be able to tell you which athlete will go and which one will have to find another boat or stay at home.

Drysdale is the current world champion and the fastest single sculler in history. He enjoyed a spectacular 2007. He edged out Marcel Hacker in one of the great single scull world championship finals to win his third straight title. He also won the Diamond Sculls at the Henley Royal Regatta and numerous other titles in the United States and Europe.

Rob Waddell won the Sydney 2000 Olympic gold medal in the men’s single scull. He then retired from rowing and played high level rugby before taking up a position with Team New Zealand to defend yachting’s prestigious America’s Cup. Waddell’s return to rowing has been marked by an unofficial world record on the indoor rowing machine. Earlier this month over 5,000m he went under 15 minutes finishing in a time of 14:58.03. At the same trials, Drysdale finished in a personal best time of 15:11.

There are some in New Zealand who bemoan the fact that both these champions can’t be in Beijing to settle their personal rivalry. They have a point. If the function of the Olympics is to sort out who’s the world’s best, it seems a bit silly to exclude the world’s second best from the race. Don’t feel too bad for New Zealand though. America faces the same problem at every Olympics in a score of events.

Take swimming for example. The table below shows the number of Americans ranked in the world’s top eight in selected Olympic swimming events. Only two will get on the airplane to Beijing. The others, who could reasonably expect to make the Olympic final, and maybe even win the race, will instead be sitting at home watching it all on TV.

And so American swimming will have at least sixteen Waddells and Drysdales sitting at home watching events they are potentially capable of winning. Not only that – for the Americans, this problem exists at every Olympics. No wonder the Olympic Trials here are cut-throat affairs. However, it has to be said that they are only a natural extension of the fierce competition that characterises swimming in this country from Florida’s “eight and under” Junior Olympics to the Olympic Trials.

I think that’s why you seldom hear American elite swimmers complain about missing selection. Since they first put on water-wings, they’ve lived in swimming’s most merciless habitat; for them it’s normal.

The problem in America is not restricted to swimming. The table below shows the same data for selected track and field events. Track has the luxury of selecting three competitors in each event.

Another seventeen of the world’s best athletes are left sitting at home. Have you ever wondered why one of the US territories, such as the US Virgin Islands, Guam or American Samoa doesn’t offer these “left at homes” a chance to compete? All you need to represent these territories is a US passport and live in the territory for three or four months. With a little bit of imagination, the US Virgin Islands could go off to Beijing with the second best swim team and track team in the world. The Virgin Islands relegates Australia to the world’s third best swimming nation. What a wonderful thought!

But back to Waddell and Drysdale: what happened in that race? Well, Drysdale won two out of the three trials and is going to represent the country and New Zealand Rowing are going to have to find a spot in the crew of another boat for Waddell, or leave him in New Zealand. Incidentally, New Zealand Rowing had better pick Drysdale. Over the last couple of days they’ve made noises about not being tied by the result of the trial. That’s the sort of dishonest nonsense that Swimming New Zealand used to get up to as well. It used to drive me mad. At least in the States a trial means a trial.

This is international sport. It is right and proper; the loser of the rowing trial is going to have to watch his countryman compete in the Olympic event he could very well have won. Unless of course we rush through a US passport, and he too can represent the US Virgin Islands.

Swimming Is More Fun With Mojitos

By Jane

Do you like "signal" posts, as opposed to "noise?" Would you rather hear training theories, racing tactics and various other competitive swimming anecdotes? If so, you may want to join our impressive bounce rate and Back-button on out of here, because I'm about to talk about nothing of the sort. Maybe this could be considered a training theory, but don't call me in a fit of rage when you don't make your Olympic Trials cut. I would make a lousy coach; let me show you why.

I like to drink when I swim now. Thankfully, I don't swim very often and (equally thankfully) I don't usually get to drink whilst swimming, but I did this week at the SMX West conference in Santa Clara, California. My co-worker and I arrived in California (oh my God, it's more than ten degrees above freezing!) and headed straight for the Santa Clara Hyatt's pool. After a careful investigation, which involved me swimming a few lengths and making an educated guess, we deduced that the pool was twenty metres long. We were equipped with caps, goggles (yes, I wrote "googles" the first time. Shut up) and real swim suits. We were ready to "work out."

You see, my co-worker will compete in a triathlon this summer. She is preparing for her first half-Ironman. She completed the Vancouver Marathon last summer. She isn't as strong a swimmer as she is a runner yet, but she's been swimming three or four times a week and didn't want to halt her regime during the four days we were in California.

We started off well. She had five or ten minutes of warm-up to complete. I swam away on one side of the pool while she swam on the other. There were no lane ropes and no other swimmers. Right before we'd begun, however, three of our friends from the UK had turned up beside the pool (it's a shame their colleague Tom Critchlow couldn't have been there too, isn't it, Tom? See your picture, Tom? The rest of you can pay no attention to this nonsense.) Soon after we started swimming, someone British suggested that we might like a drink to go with our training.

My co-worker managed to complete her session, but I was well and truly distracted. I managed a few more lengths, including a 20-metre breaststroke as-fast-as-possible which was more impressive than you'd expect from a two-years' retired, half-bottled search engine geek. With the Pac 10 Swimming Championships currently underway in Southern California, my "training session" reminded me both of how much I enjoyed my swimming career and how glad I am that it's over.

Six Degrees of Separation

By David

Have you ever heard of the game called "Six Degrees of Separation?" You play it by working out how far removed you are from the world’s famous people, or from anyone, for that matter. For example, I am one degree of separation removed from President Kennedy. One of our Masters swimmers spent his working life managing the affairs of various US Consulates around the world and he met President Kennedy. Thanks to Stuart, I am also only one degree of separation removed from Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson. Fortunately Stuart never met the current President. I also have just one degree of separation from the New Zealand Prime Minister. Evan, a university mate of mine, works in her office.

It is amazing how few steps are required for most of us to be associated with everyone else. Several studies estimate that each person is an average of just six steps away from every other person on the earth. I never thought I’d have any association with the World Trade Center terrorists. However, in my apartment block in Delray Beach, Florida I live on the third floor. On the fifth and top floor, in apartment 1504, Mohammed Attar plotted the events of September 11, 2001. That’s not the kind of close separation I like.

New Zealand is such a small place that it seems I’ve never met another New Zealander who does not know at least one person that I also know. In fact, New Zealanders must be among the world’s most nomadic people. They turn up everywhere. It could be looked on as an awful condemnation of their home country. Thousands of us can’t wait to get away from the place. But I don’t think so. Instead I think it’s a huge compliment that so many of us are out around the world exploring life elsewhere, confident that our home is a pretty good place to go back to should we ever feel the need. There can’t be much wrong with a nation that breeds such a determined group of independent explorers. Compare that to the thousands in Kansas or Ohio who have never ventured more than a hundred miles or so from where they were born and tell me which one suggests a problem.

Here in Delray Beach, I know one other New Zealander, Kevin, whom Barry Crump would certainly consider a "Good Keen Man." He is one of a long line of talented and able Kiwi yachties who race expensive sail boats for rich foreign owners. One of his boats made the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald when it struck a rock in Sydney Harbour and sank. He will probably never talk to me again unless I mention that he was not steering at the time.

Eventually, Kevin arrived in the United States, married a very understanding American girl and settled in Delray Beach. Today, Kevin runs a successful home improvement business. His son knows as much about the All Blacks as he does about the NFL. Their home regularly wins the "best lit house in the county" prize at Christmas. But best of all, Kevin remembers the needs of his countrymen. Occasionally he has work to do in the Bahamas. There is a shop there that sells tins of New Zealand’s Anchor butter. Each time Kevin makes the trip he brings me back a tin, knowing that just opening it will bring back all the smells and sights of Taranaki and the Waikato, of guys in Swandris milking a hundred cows before dawn, of muddy gumboots and spotless cow sheds. We’re both here but we haven’t forgotten back there either.

In fact I’m told Kevin was not all that pleased at my lack of concern for New Zealand’s loss to France in the World Rugby Cup. Of course I wanted New Zealand to win but the coach, Graham Henry is not a winning coach; the New Zealander Robbie Deans is a winner, but he coaches the Australians. If that coaching combination stays the same through to the next World Cup, Australia will win; sorry Kevin.

Kevin’s neighbors are members of the Aqua Crest swim team. How’s that for degrees of separation? Their daughter is a very good eleven year old who one day will be good enough to fly off and swim in Europe and other places we like to go. She’s a tough, hard worker and as I’ve told her, she has the advantage of having a New Zealander as her neighbor. Jane, Toni and Nichola each competed for New Zealand in about twenty different countries in their swimming careers. I’m picking that Kevin’s eleven year old neighbor will one day become just like them.

This year, two of the Aqua Crest team are going to the Mare Nostrum series in Monaco, Spain and France. Joe is an ex-USC swimmer and has worked hard to get back into shape after one year away from the sport. Andrew has been doing a Lydiard program for two years and has won a Florida High School Championship and been fourth on three other occasions. They are good guys and I think will enjoy joining that nomadic band of swimmers who, “have suit; will travel."

Your Poopl Does Small

By David

The title of this item is a quote from one of the unpublished messages received by Swimwatch. What it is supposed to say is, “Your poop does smell – just like everyone else’s”. The author’s English is as suspect as many other qualities revealed by the message. It amazes me, the personal and always anonymous bile that pours forth from some of these unfortunate souls. I don’t know why they bother. Their contribution to the sum of human knowledge is not going to be published. Perhaps they are happy just knowing the subject of their venom has read the stuff they write.

He, or she, is however not alone. For every serious, valued contribution Swimwatch receives, there is one that is an awfully sad reflection on the world inhabited by its author. It would be nice to publish unedited the comments received. Unfortunately, while there are individuals like this out there, we will continue to enable comment moderation.

The “poop does smell” comment was received in reply to my recent Arthur Lydiard article. You may recall that this article’s core point was that a wider acceptance of Lydiard principles might reduce the drop-out rate that is of such concern to the Florida Gold Coast LRC. It should be possible to make that positive suggestion without motivating a torrent of personal attacks. It appears not. I thought you might be interested in some other examples of correspondence received but not published. They too are educational; they provide a frightening insight into the way some of those involved in the sport think.

One writer took the opportunity to attack a swimmer on our team: the “only good swimmer left there is now a one trick pony that is under achieveing.” Far be it from me to criticize others spelling, however for the record, "achieveing" is spelled "achieving." This chap makes so many spelling errors! He should start using the computer’s “spell-check” facility.

Let’s look a bit deeper into what he says: “a one trick pony." That accusation could be leveled at almost every good swimmer. Gary Hall swims the 50 and 100 freestyle. Popov could swim pretty good backstroke but usually restricted himself to 50 and 100 freestyle. You don’t see Grant Hackett swimming much breaststroke or Hansen entering the 1500 freestyle. New Zealand’s best sprinter for a number of years, Nichola Chellingworth, only swam 50 and 100 freestyle and 50 butterfly. Amanda Beard swims a good medley but tends to focus on the 200 breaststroke. There are, of course, Phelps and Hoff who can turn their hand to a wide range of events. Most of the good ones, however, are one trick ponies. Next time this sage contributor meets Gary Hall, I wonder if he will be as liberal with the “one trick pony” label. It would do him well to remember that for most of us the alternative to a one trick pony is “jack of all trades, master of none”.

The under achieving label in this case is a bit harsh. In the last two years the swimmer being referred to has won one Florida State High School Championship and been fourth on three other occasions. His best 50 yards time has improved from 23.43 to 21.25 and his 100 yards from 49.09 to 46.36, that’s 9.3% and 5.6% in two years. I imagine there are a many of us who would welcome that sort of record and improvement even if it was considered by this swimming genius as “under achieving”.

Another comment sent to Swimwatch recently said, “For someone who has now coached in the Forida Gold Coast for OVER 2 years now - what has this the way of training produced?” You see what I mean about the standard of the critic’s English. One can only hope, “No child left behind” does better in the future.

It is a pity this critic does not read my writing about Lydiard’s training more closely. On almost every occasion I make the point that results come slowly; a minimum of four years is required to make the physiological changes required for elite performance. In “Swim to the Top” I put it like this.

“Be very aware however that results in the early seasons may take longer to show than aggressively sprint trained competitors. Build up conditioning is not the fastest way of achieving fine results. In fact it is often quite slow. It is however the best way to achieve the best results.”

The critic’s quote brilliantly illustrates the point I was trying to make in the Lydiard article. Clearly, “OVER 2 years” is considered ample time. Abject failure can be the only appropriate description of two years of modest improvement. There is little wonder that Florida has its share of teenage drop outs when idiots like this consider two years to be an extended and relevant time period in which to achieve athletic success. Thank you for the illustration.

Incidentally, in the two years he refers to, this team has grown from ten swimmers to eighty, has had two Florida State High School Champions and several other finalists, two National Masters Champions and several other finalists, three National qualifiers and a bunch of juniors who love the sport. Our critics describe this as failure but we are pleased with our steady and modest progress.

It is difficult to understand the motives and intellect that produces the mindless animosity in some of these emails. I suggest that before they press the send button in future they consider whether their efforts are making a contribution and even then, pause for one more moment and turn on the “spell-check” facility.