Christchurch Earthquake

By David

Each week Swimwatch is read in about 35 countries. I imagine readers in most of them will have heard about the 7.1 Richter scale earthquake that recently rocked the New Zealand city of Christchurch. Unbelievably no one was killed, but the Christchurch community was a mess. Dozens of buildings were condemned, water and electricity supplies were spasmodic and events like the New Zealand Short Course Junior Swimming Championships had to be shifted. The Championships were originally scheduled for Christchurch from the 26th to 30th September. With the pool short of water and the pool buildings in need of repair, Swimming New Zealand had no option but to cancel the event or shift it to another location.

Swimming New Zealand handled a difficult problem well. In spite of the limited time available they consulted the swimming community widely and decided to move the Championships to New Zealand’s capital city, Wellington. Our Club has seven swimmers qualified to swim in the Championships but we won’t be going. I’ve never been a great fan of age group nationals. The Americans do well to avoid the national age group events, so popular in New Zealand, Australia and, come to think of it, most of the rest of the world. In my experience the New Zealand version is an awful event.

They are the scene of too much hurt. At the beginning of the week keen, enthusiastic, happy young people arrive full of anticipation, coached and honed to a competitive edge. Parents dash around checking that their charge’s start list seed times have been properly entered and locating the town’s best source of pasta. Coaches patrol the pre-meet practice with all the intensity of an Olympic warm up. International swim meet promoters would die to be able to create the nervous energy present at the beginning of your average New Zealand age group championship.

By the end of the first morning’s heats you can detect the mood beginning to change. The problem is thirty swimmers enter an event, eight make a final, three get medals and one wins. Potentially there are twenty nine disappointed swimmers and fifty eight disappointed parents who can’t wait to get back to the motel for their treble gin and tonic to ease the pain. It’s a disappointment born out of expectations set far too high.

As each day goes by the mood darkens and deepens. The transformation is stunning. The tremendous high of the first morning slumps during the day; is momentarily revived at the beginning of day two, only to slump even further. By day four all I want to do is get the hell out of there and make sure no swimmer of mine ever goes back. For someone whose heart is in seeing athletes soar, the New Zealand Age Group and Junior Championships are not something I care to watch.

There was a good article on the US Junior Nationals in an old issue of the USA Swimming magazine “Splash”. In it USA Swimming demonstrates an acute awareness that their event needs to avoid many of the problems characteristic of the New Zealand version. They say:

“Along the way, however, many coaches and others within USA Swimming saw a disturbing trend. Instead of a whistle stop on the way to Senior National and international competition the Junior Nationals were embedding themselves as a destination.”

The Americans have done some good things to avoid the problems inherent in New Zealand’s Age Group and Junior Championships to ensure their meet is a whistle stop and not a destination. First of all the American event is an “open” junior event; not an age group championship. Everyone up to a relatively old 18 can swim in their Junior Nationals. There are no single year age group categories. The protection of individual age categories used in New Zealand encourages young swimmers to compete in a false reality; promoting the event as a winning destination rather than a stepping stone to senior swimming. The national body here is about to compound that problem by “nationalising” championships for 10, 11 and 12 year old children. The false reality that is characteristic of New Zealand age group swimming will now start even younger. It is almost impossible to imagine any winning 10 year old ever making it past the seven further national age group hurdles to finally emerge as a winning senior international athlete. A quick look through the year 2000 12 years and under “national” results illustrates the point. Not one winner has made it through to the 2010 Pan Pacs team. The best I could see was Lauren Boyle who was 8th equal in the 12 year old girls 100 freestyle.

Secondly, the American junior qualifying standards are really tough. They reflect their “older” cut off age. An athlete has to be quick just to make the cut. There’s a fair chance swimmers that fast will have the experience and maturity to handle the occasion. A young Lauren Boyle would have to wait a few years before she could even compete in the American National Junior Championships. Her 1.07 in 2000 would have had to become 58.59 to even qualify for the American junior event. In Boyle’s case, she was tough enough to make it through the New Zealand system and prosper; a quality she subsequently confirmed by competing successfully in the world’s toughest swimming environment: the NCAAs.

Thirdly, names included on the US junior meet’s list of alumni suggest their “Juniors” are a successful transition between local and international competition. Unlike the New Zealand results “Splash” tells me Gary Hall, Aaron Peirsol, Ian Crocker and Michael Phelps swam here. That’s a pretty impressive list. Their “Junior National Championship” is working all right.

  • J

    You’re talking quite a lot of sense this time. It’s odd, though, that we don’t seem to find the balance between making our young folk competitive and promoting the joy of the journey. I wonder, what would happen if parents were banned from the sideline? If the swimmers are there to live their own dreams, then success, however you define it, will come. If the driving force is the parents living their dreams through their kids then we are doomed – so the question has to be, who owns the dream? I’m enjoying the image of a parent-free zone!