Archive for 2009

Can You Help Us Adopt A Swimmer?

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

By David

One of the pools we use is in a less well-off neighborhood. I like it actually. It’s the sort of place you drive through dodging youths throwing 50 meter passes to each other, of front yards crowded with ladies sitting on plastic chairs discussing their children and old men preparing an evening grill. The local City of Delray authorities are doing a great and unheralded job of providing recreation here. Every afternoon the field behind the pool is filled with a hundred small nippers, dressed in pads and bright green football helmets going through their drills, preparing for the National Football League. The basketball courts beside the pool are home to their taller cousins shooting a thousand baskets and cheerleaders practicing for their call to come cheer for the Dallas Cowboys. Two tennis courts on the other side are littered with a hundred balls: the home to potential grunting Williams sisters. It’s busy, it’s active and it’s good to be a part of.

It has presented me with a problem though – swimmers whose parents simply cannot afford our pool and swimming fees. Already I have agreed to coach five local swimmers for free – on scholarship. And then yesterday I saw a young girl cruising the pool with the relaxed ease seldom seen in even the well coached. She’s tall and lean: the sort of build East German recruiters used to revere. The Pool Manager tells me she is eleven years old and doesn’t own a swim suit. She borrows one from the pool office each afternoon. There is no possibility her family could ever afford swimming fees. I have always been firmly of the view that no one should be denied the right to explore their talent because of a lack of money. Talent after all is not the sole prerogative of the well off. This girl is a classic example of that truth: just perhaps a female Cullen Jones waiting for her chance, needing a break.

There is a real need to expand the scholarship program beyond the five students I already support. The full cost of registration, coaching and pool fees is $1000 per annum: made up of $840 swimming fees and $160 pool fees. If there is anyone reading Swimwatch who can help by adopting this swimmer or others like her we would love to hear from you. Even the smallest donation makes the world of difference.


ADOPT A SWIMMER DONATION

Here’s the way it works

The swim team has established a Pompey Park Swimmer’s Account through PayPal. By following the instructions below, a donation of any amount can be made to the Pompey Park Swimmer’s Account. Each month the  Account will then pay the City of Delray Beach the monthly coaching fees and pool fees for swimmers from difficult circumstances that are selected for scholarship assistance. I will anonymously report on Swimwatch the amount of all assistance received.

Here’s how to help

Click on the “DONATION” button:


Follow the instructions for making your donation

Here’s who you can contact

If you want to discuss the Adopt a Swimmer program and confirm your donation is going directly to help a swimmer from the Pompey Park area, here are some contact numbers.

Administrator – Benn Stille, (561) 732-9305, ext. 6208, Email ben@stillefam.net

Swim Team Treasurer – Peter Kariher, (561) 767-0192, Email pkariher@comcast.net

Pompey Park Pool Manager – Nina Salomom, (561) 243-7358, Email salomon@ci.delray-beach.fl.us

Coach – David Wright (561) 703-2858, Email nzdaw@yahoo.co.nz

Coaching swimming in this community can be incredibly satisfying. I am teaching some adults to swim just now. When one particular lady arrived, just getting down the steps into the water took her a full measure of courage. Three lessons later, she can swim about ten meters, kick 50 meters and float on her back. I have been fortunate enough to help some good swimmers. However, the delight in this learner’s face when she discovered the new world of just floating was as satisfying as coaching a National Championship or Master’s World Record. Not more or less satisfying but certainly equal. I would imagine there may be some who doubt the honesty of that thought, but it’s true. When you next see someone float for the first time, look closely into their eyes. You will find there all the wonder of discovery. The last time I felt that way was when I flew an aeroplane solo for the first time. I had joined a new club, glimpsed a new environment and discovered a new world to explore. Clearly swimming has offered this learner the same feeling of awe. I suspect the most extravagant comment she has ever made was her reply to my question, “Have you told them at home about your swimming?” She said, “Yes, I’m bragging.” But as Muhammad Ali said, “It ain’t bragging if it’s true.”

Posted in Florida, Training | No Comments »

Age Is Just A Number

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

By David

On two or three occasions I have written articles about members of our Master’s program. The program is a pretty good one. There’s about fifty of us. We’ve had four US National Champions and last year one of them set two FINA Master’s World Records in the men’s 50 and 100 meters butterfly. For those who are interested, the times were 24.17 and 54.98. But more important than all that the team is made up of interesting, fun people that make the trip to training a ball.

Take Lesley for example. She’s a good swimmer who works her way through 5000 meters every morning. I haven’t been able to talk her into competing yet but when she does she could well become National Champion number five. Her early life is a compelling jumble of the eccentric and colorful. She’s actually done what the rest of us either make up or tell lies about. You don’t think so? Well how many of you have worked as an analyst in a major investment bank, been homeless and slept under bridges in Boston for six months, bought and sold Palm Beach gold, made tie dyed t-shirts to sell at rock concerts, been a bicycle courier through two New England winters, spent five years in a VW Kombi van following the Grateful Dead from concert to concert, nannied for the family of the Duke and Duchess of something in the London suburb of Chelsea, waited tables in an up-market Delray Beach restaurant or made a hundred rehab trips before finally giving the whole dangerous lifestyle away? They say your life experiences make you what you are. In Lesley’s case that’s true. She reflects the diverse complexity of her life. She’s interesting, loyal, compassionate and kind and, as I said before, a good swimmer as well. An old farming friend of mine in New Zealand used to say, “Judge your mates by whether you’d want them with you in the bush on a cold, wet night.” Lesley easily passes that test. Since I’ve been in the United States I’ve met one or two guys who really like to think they’re tough. They collect guns, drive jingoistic trucks, take their daughters to gun ranges, boast about their High School football feats and talk big about their country invading or bombing just about everybody. I wouldn’t have one of them anywhere near me in the bush on a dark night. That requires someone you can trust. You can trust Lesley though. But that’s not the problem. It’s more difficult than that – I’ve still got to get her into a bloody swimming race.

And then there is Master’s swimmer Martin. He was born and raised in a small town at the top of New Zealand’s South Island called Blenheim. It’s a lovely place. I once had a training camp there and for most of his life my father had a small farm just outside of town. My brother Pete was the Sport’s Editor of the town’s main newspaper and coached the local provincial (state) rugby team. Martin went to the same University as I did in New Zealand’s capital city, Wellington. The University’s brightest and best read politics and philosophy. For some reason, best known to himself, Martin chose to graduate in accountancy, imagine that, accountancy. Like many New Zealanders he then left New Zealand to see the world. Only Martin did it in a most unusual and exotic way. He took a gamble on his good looks and triathlon body and signed up with the 5th Avenue, New York, Ford modeling agency. One of our other swim team parents, Doug, is also on Ford’s books and we once had a team member who had been a finalist in the Miss. Venezuela contest. If nothing else, we sure as hell are the best looking master’s team in Florida. If you know anything about modeling you will be aware that Ford is probably the world’s leading agency. Here’s how their website describes themselves “One of the most recognized and respected agencies in the history of modeling, Ford impeccably represents a wide spectrum of models from supermodels like Jerry Hall and Carmen to hot faces like Chanel Iman and Lakshmi Menon.” Right now Ford represent only 62 models, two of whom are ranked in the world’s top 50 female models and seven ranked in the top 50 male models. Well, Martin was one of those. For ten years he wandered the world wearing designer clothes on the catwalks of Paris and Milan, having his photograph taken on the beach in Monte Carlo and on the side of Mount Fuji in Japan. I had dinner at his place two weeks ago and after a couple of bottles of wine he agreed to let me see his portfolio of photographs. It was bloody incredible; dozens of photographs of Martin dressed in the most expensive clothes, sometimes smiling, often with that slightly pouting scowl favored by the world’s best male models. God knows how he’s done it but after all that jet set lifestyle he is married, happily swimming on the Master’s team and the father of a daughter and son who swim on our USS team.

The team has a whole bunch of others who lead uncommonly interesting lives. There’s Kerry, three fingered Steve, Sarah, Matha, Peter, Ben, Noelle and a dozen others. We’ve run out of space in this article but I will tell you about that crew next time. You can see photographs of many of them on the master’s team website – aquacrest.org. In Lesley’s photograph she is being difficult and has a towel over her head. She says it’s because her hair looks awful when it’s wet. Martin has yet to be photographed for the team’s website. When we do we will try and get him into one of his Ford style poses. Let’s see if he’s still got it.

Posted in Florida, Training | No Comments »

Guard Pacific’s Triple Star

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

By David

The New Zealand National Spring Championships have just ended. As normal the Championships displayed promise and hope. As usual they evidenced flaws. There is one failing in particular that is cause for concern.

In a recent Swimwatch article titled “Make our Country Good and Great” we argued that the policy being followed in New Zealand by Jan Cameron was fundamentally flawed. Her intention was to concentrate talent and resources on Auckland’s North Shore. She called it the International Training Center (ITC) and from its well financed pool international champions would flow. That hasn’t happened. I know of several prominent coaches who predicted the plan’s failure. Foremost among them was someone who really knew his stuff when it came to winning Olympic gold medals – Arthur Lydiard.

Arthur argued that sporting success required the person doing Cameron’s job diversify and strengthen swimming throughout the country. He did not want to see Emily Thomas shipped up to Auckland. He wanted to see her Gisborne coach provided with the skills and money to take her to Olympic success in Gisborne. Burmester should have been able to and encouraged to stay in the Bay of Plenty, Fitch in Hamilton, Benson in Hastings and a dozen others in their home town with skilled and well funded coaches who had probably been with them since before they could swim.

Why was Arthur right and Cameron wrong. Well, you see a fundamental law of elite sport is that “to compete successfully requires competition – lots of competition.” Cameron’s plan has stifled competition. The very life blood that makes the whole thing work has been drained. The table below illustrates the point. It examines the results of three national championships – New Zealand, the United States and Australia.

And so you can see the dramatic effect Cameron’s policies have had on the competitiveness of swimming in New Zealand. In the USA 14 clubs shared the spoils of 24 races and in Australia 14 clubs shared 34 gold medals. In New Zealand only nine clubs were good enough to be home to one of 34 national champions. The very best and most competitive club in the USA could win only four national titles. In a country where powerful clubs like Stanford, Longhorns, Baltimore, California, Trojans and others are well financed and well coached, none of them could dominate their National Championships. The very best could win only 15% of the races on offer. The situation in Australia is the same. The most successful club won only five races, also 15% of the total. In both countries competition is cut throat and close. That’s called being competitive.

In New Zealand on the other hand one club, North Shore, won 15 of the 34 races or 44% of the total senior races swum. The points gap between North Shore and New Zealand’s second placed club was a stunning 278 points; more points than the second placed club managed to score. In the United States the points gap between the first and second place clubs was just 30 points; once again close and competitive.

The really sad thing about all this is that there are many in New Zealand who point to the dominance of North Shore as a sign of strength. A strong North Shore is a strong New Zealand, we’re told. We need to centralize the way the East Germans used to, they say. Cameron got her national job on the basis of her clubs dominance so of course she was going to stay with what she knew. It brought personal success before, perhaps it will again.

Unfortunately for my country her job had changed. A National Coach is responsible for strengthening the whole country. Cameron’s job was not to have her old club win 15 of 34 medals. Her job was to strengthen swimming throughout the country so that North Shore could win only four or five races. A National Coach is responsible for building swimming in Wellington, Hamilton, Auckland, Dunedin and Hastings so that only a few points separate the nation’s top clubs. A National Coach strengthens a country not a club. The closer the competition from clubs throughout the country; the more difficult it is for North Shore to win anything, the better. A successful National Coach makes the sport more competitive. And the data on this table shows that has not been done. The lopsided dominance of one club is New Zealand’s weakness and the National Coach’s failure.

It is a serious failure. At some stage another mentor will take over the position of National Coach. It is my hope that North Shore will still win the points and medals table. But it is my wish also that they only win by the slimmest of margins. I hope Neptune, Capital, Enterprise, United and my old club Comet are so strong and so tough that every National Championships is a fight for every last point; for every last medal. The coach that achieves that will have strengthened swimming in a manner that will result in Olympic winners.

Posted in New Zealand, Racing | No Comments »

Make Our Country Good & Great

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

By David

I am about to write another story on swimming in New Zealand. My warning is intended to protect readers, sick and tired of me lamenting this subject. If you are one of those who harbor animosity towards my despair for swimming in New Zealand you are not alone. Just about every person involved in the Swimwatch blog hates it when I write on this subject. They say things like, “You’ve said it all before. What good does it do?” Some are even generous enough to argue that Jan Cameron’s organization should be given more time. However in spite of your dismay and their opposition there are things that need to be said and repeated until someone stops the current waste of money and talent.

All this has been highlighted by New Zealand’s performance in the Rome World Championships. After Beijing, New Zealand’s national coach, Jan Cameron, told us to wait until Rome. New Zealand was on the verge of greatness. Well Rome has come and gone and greatness has eluded us again. No one made it through to a final. Four swims got as far as the semi-finals. New Zealand’s best placing was eleventh. However I want to be very clear, I am not apportioning any criticism to the swimmers. For years they have been let down by Cameron and the failed policy she has imposed on swimming in my country. Let me explain:

Since before the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, Cameron has been in control of swimming in New Zealand. That means she was responsible for the nation’s results in 2000 in Sydney, 2004 in Athens and 2008 in Beijing. At World Championships she was in charge in 2001 in Japan, 2003 in Barcelona, 2005 in Montreal, 2007 in Melbourne and 2009 in Rome. That’s eight shots at it and she’s still hasn’t won a race.

Worse than that, is the reason for her poor performance. When Cameron first announced her plans Lydiard said to me they would debilitate the sport of swimming in New Zealand for a generation. Cameron convinced Swimming New Zealand to support the formation of an elite center for swimming on Auckland’s North Shore. For Auckland, New Zealand read Potsdam, East Germany and you will be close to the idea. SPARC and Swimming New Zealand resources were focused on the goal of creating a swimming empire on the other side of Auckland’s Harbor Bridge. Good swimmers from all over the country were encouraged to leave their home coach and swim in Auckland. And they did leave. Swimmers from Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Carterton, Rotorua and Hamilton made the journey north.

There were and still are two really bad bits to all of this.

First, hovering above the whole scheme was the unasked specter of what happens if the coaching at the elite center isn’t all that good? Cameron has employed a variety of coaches – including, in the best spirit of nepotism, her son. The only evidence we have of their ability is their performance on the world stage. As I have already explained, in the last nine years, they have been in that theatre eight times and have not won a medal. For a normal Club team that record would not be a concern. But when this team has been the recipient of the national swimming resources based on repeated promises of success, their performance is a disgrace. They have had access to bucket loads of talent and cash and have returned empty handed. If their recent coaching record is the measure, New Zealand’s best swimmers have been poorly served.

Second, while all this attention has been focused on Cameron’s grandiose schemes in Auckland, what has happened in the rest of the country? Well, they’ve been starved for cash and talent, that’s what’s happened. Worse than that, some very good regional coaches have been reduced to age group instructors for the North Shore talent pool. Who’s to say some coach in Gisborne isn’t better at training an Olympic Champion than one of Cameron’s coaches. The Gisborne coach certainly couldn’t do much worse.

Lydiard recognized the debilitating consequences of Cameron’s plan. Coaching in the rest of New Zealand would get weaker and weaker. And he was right. Swimming in New Zealand has been weakened as a result of Cameron’s folly. A few years ago, if New Zealand had been operating the Cameron way, there would have been no Loader, Simcic, Winter, Paul Kent, Mosse, Bray, Kingsman, Jeffs, Hurring, Perrott or Langrell. They all trained and prospered with their regional coach. As a direct result, numerous regional coaches had first hand experience of handling world class swimmers. Swim coaching throughout the country was stronger. In my case, my athletes have taught me as much about coaching as I ever taught them about swimming. That’s all a thing of the past. And the country will not recover quickly.

The alternative was to do what Lydiard did in Finland and Sweetenham did in the UK. What they understood was that to win major international events required improving all the nation’s coaches. That had to be the priority. Centers of excellence were fine but not at the expense of improving coaching everywhere. Lydiard traveled the length and breadth of Finland changing attitudes, lifting standards. He did not try and do it himself. But he did make sure dozens of other coaches were ready to do it where ever the next Loader appeared. And it worked. Finland won the 1500, 5000 and 10000 at the Munich Olympic Games, not with athletes coached by Lydiard, but with athletes whose coaches had been tutored by this master coach. Lydiard avoided the temptation to build a monument to ego. Instead he built the coaching resources of an entire country. There were coaches everywhere capable of nurturing an Olympic champion. And that is just what they did.

For nine years New Zealand has won nothing. We do however have a monument to ego and its not working.

Posted in New Zealand, Racing | No Comments »

The South of France and Other Stuff

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

By David

While money can’t buy swimming success, without money swimming success is very difficult. About eight months ago a generous corporate sponsor accepted this proposition and gave our team $10,000. With this help, could we lift the standard of the team’s fastest swimmers? Could we provide a generation of young swimmers with home grown role models? It was well worth a try, so here is what we did.

No – one moment – first, let me tell you the result. The team’s fastest swimmers did improve. Remember, we are a small team, so please don’t compare our modest results with North Baltimore, Fort Lauderdale or Mecklenburg. A Boeing 747 and a Piper Arrow both fly, but there the comparison should end. We completed the summer season with one male swimmer going a 50 second 100 LCM freestyle, two others swimming 52 seconds, and a fourth who swims 55. Our best 50 LCM swimmer went 23.32 and our new club records in the 50 and 100 LCM butterfly are 24.17 and 55.95. The 50 time is a new Masters 30-34 World Record. Our team ended the season with three Master’s US National Championship titles. We also lured back into swimming my daughter, Jane, who was once New Zealand’s national champion and Open Record Holder in the 200 breaststroke. And in triathlon one athlete from the team qualified for the 2009 Hawaiian World Ironman Championship.

Even our team’s most rabid critics, and there are a few of those, should accept that having a swimmer go 50 seconds in the 100, winning three US Masters titles and holding one FINA Master’s World Record is not bad progress for a team that, four years ago, had eight swimmers. Best of all, we are well poised to move forward from these modest beginnings.

And so how did it happen. Well, we went to Europe. We spent a week at the French Font Romeu national high altitude training camp. It is a beautiful spot, high in the Pyrenees where Lance Armstrong and his mates toil. The air might be thin, but it’s crisp and clean. The scenery is stunning. Alpine forests cover endless mountain slopes, broken only by ski trails winding and descending into small French villages. Fantastic cafés serve lunch with food only the French know how to prepare. All this and a 50 meter pool, a weight room, three meals a day including free wine, a free medical center and individual rooms for $45 a day.

We spent another three days in Barcelona competing in the first stop of the 2009 Mare Nostrum series. I’m a junky for the internationalism of it all. The teams from everywhere, the familiar central city pool, the world class competition, the busy city, the tourists; it’s great. For transport, our team relied on a nine seat Mercedes van and a two door, Mercedes SLK convertible. The SLK was monopolized by Skuba and Jane, who claim they never once drove it too fast. Skuba had a good meet and swam personal bests in the 50 and 100 freestyle.

And so we moved on to my favorite town, the French coastal village of Canet. I love it there; it’s so European, so Mediterranean, so intensely French. We rented a four bedroom Mediterranean villa for our five day stay. It was a little bit shabby – no chrome, no stainless steel, no plastic – but an enclosed paved courtyard with trees and tables a dining room with a huge communal table and a sitting room with lumpy and friendly couches and chairs. Canet has improved the town’s 50 meter pool by adding an indoor 25 meter warm-up pool. It can be a truly international facility now. The atmosphere at the Canet meet is unlike any other meet. It has an almost Sunday picnic atmosphere. But it’s not of course. No meet with Trickett, Sullivan, Bernard, Jukic and Jones is a picnic. Andrew and Skuba swam personal bests in all their events. Jane made a sub 30 second 50 meters return to swimming after a three year retirement [Jane's note: I prefer to call that time an extended taper.]

The tour’s final stop was Monte Carlo. No place on earth could be more different from Canet. Here it is all Porsches and Ferraris and casinos. Shortly after we arrived I noticed a Ferrari stop outside our hotel. The hall porter explained that the driver was Jensen Button, the Formula One World Champion. Needless to say he drives for Ferrari. He also owns the hotel.

From way up on the coastal motorway, I never tire of the sight of this millionaire’s playground. Sitting on the hotel balcony eating lunch and gazing out at the Mediterranean, it’s hard not to be impressed, even when some swimmer five floors above hangs their suit out to dry and it begins dripping on to the table. Our guys were getting tired. They swam close to their best and we headed for home.

It’s a great trip and it works. With all the hardships involved in travel and hotels, the good ones love it and they improve. The sponsor’s trust that this would occur was well founded. The improvements they supported and we wanted were achieved. Thank you – you see, while money can’t buy swimming success, without money swimming success is very difficult.

Already the swimmers are planning Mare Nostrum 2010. It’ll be another great adventure and they will go faster.

Posted in Europe, Racing | No Comments »

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