By NZSwimmingFan
Note: This post was written by a guest contributor who has commented here several times, such as on Pan Pacs Preview a week ago.
Over the last couple of weeks, these under-18 versions of their senior counterparts were held in Maui and Singapore respectively – New Zealand sending small teams to both, their fortunes unfortunately mirroring those of the senior Pan Pac team – getting better, but not as quickly as the rest of the world.
Firstly, special mention must be made of Gareth Kean’s 1:57.78 200 back in Maui, currently 14th in the world and 3rd equal in the Commonwealth. Stripping away the Swimming New Zealand hype, he is a genuine contender in Delhi. What was even more impressive is that his improvement over his 1:58.5 at Pan Pacs was almost all on the 3rd 50, a 30.45 vs. a 31.05. He clearly learned from his pacing mistake in Irvine (I’m sure some clear water and racing in lane 4 helped too). Watching his race at Pan Pacs, it looks like the prime determinant of whether he only makes the finals or instead medals in Delhi and beyond will be how much he can improve on his walls – his swimming is world class, but his turns aren’t much better than solid age groupers’.
It will be a measure of his class to see how quickly he can get back into hard work, if he manages to again improve in Delhi with such a short (4 weeks) build-up, New Zealand swimming fans should be rightfully excited.
New Zealand’s other outstanding backstroke prospect, Sophia Batchelor, didn’t fare as well as Kean in Maui, finishing roughly a second off her best in all her events except the 100 free. She broke Rebecca Perrott’s long-standing record in this event and once again SNZ got overly excited, saying the record was 24 years old when it was 34 years old. They also credit Sophia’s 2:06 in the final of the 200 Free as being a PB, when she in fact swam a 2:02 in March and has swum under 2:06 numerous times since then (including a 2:03 in the heats in Maui). They also say she swam a worrying 2:34 in her 200 IM heat, when she in fact did a 2:24. SNZ screw-ups aside, I’m sure Batchelor, at just 15, will be stronger for the experience and back to her best at NZ Short Course NAGS in late September.
The other two pool swimmers in Maui, Sam Lucie-Smith and Sam Lee also had up and down meets. Lucie-Smith has steadily dropped her 200 Free time and again PB’d with a 2:02.8, which puts her in the conversation for the promising womens 4×200 free relay that is building towards London. She also raced the final of the 400 Free, but finished 2 seconds off the 4:17 she swam at the 2009 NAGS – back then it looked as if she may have been a quality 400 free prospect but she has subsequently failed to recapture that form. Butterflyer Sam Lee was also off her best, swimming slower in her 200 Fly than she did at the 2009 Junior Pan Pacs 20 months ago, and also finishing off her PB in the 100 Fly after flirting with being the first Kiwi woman under 60 seconds last year.
At the Youth Olympics in Singapore, the story was much the same. The SNZ hype machine never misses out on an opportunity to pump young male freestylers up as the second coming of Danyon Loader, and Matt Stanley was no exception. He swam a solid 3:56 in his 400 Free, but must have been a little disappointed after clocking a short course 3:48 prior to the meet. He then came 5th in the 200 in a 1:51, a time which would have placed him 6th in Maui, indicating that there were very few swimming powerhouses that sent full strength teams to Singapore. These were both good swims, but comparisons to Loader are unfair and unwarranted. Backstroker Renee Stothard was close to her best, while Chloe Francis was relatively disappointing, failing to back up a good 200 IM heat in the final. Francis also missed out in her other events, most notably in the 200 free, after putting down an awesome 2:01.2 in March she only managed a 2:03 in Singapore.
The most frustrating thing about these results is that SNZ seems to pick our national teams as if we are one of the leading swimming nations in the world. We sent 4 swimmers to Maui and 3 to Singapore – why did we split them up? We don’t have the luxury of sending a ‘development’ team to meets like these and I understand that cost of travel is a legitimate issue so why didn’t we just send everyone to one meet, even if it was the weaker Youth Olympics (on the basis of experiencing a multi-sport event.) When we do this, swimmers miss out on racing in relays, which I think are hugely important and lift the best out of many people, and being able to support swimmers in lots of races, rather than one or two a session. I also think this attitude pervades the selection criteria for these meets, I appreciate we need to send high quality teams to these events but for those swimmers on the fringes it can be the difference between quitting and continuing. A case in point of this would be Tash Hind; she had always been a solid, if unspectacular, age-grouper and was given the opportunity to race in the womens 4×200 relay at Beijing after finishing 4th in a relatively slow 2:04.8 at the Olympic trials. Since then, she’s dropped to a 1:58.8 and looks to have room for improvement.
One final note from the meet in Maui, in the mens 4×100 medley relay, which New Zealand (Kean, Simpson, Bell, Burrows) won in an incredible upset in 2009, but weren’t even able to field a team to defend the title in 2010. The USA under 18 team swam faster than our senior team did at Pan Pacs, NZ faster on 3 legs, but 1.5 sec slower on the butterfly – a massive worry for a Kiwi group that looked to be medal contenders in London.
