By David

Three disciplines make up the sport of triathlon. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in coaching in two of the three – athletics and swimming.

In athletics I helped coach three very good runners. Alison was a New Zealand and UK National Champion and is the current holder of New Zealand’s oldest Women’s National Record; 1000 meters in 2m 38.54s set on a lovely night in Berlin on the 17 August 1979. That time would still have ranked Alison fourth in the world in 2012. Sue was a UK National Junior 3000 meter champion. Peter was a National Champion of Wales and ran 13.20 for 5000 meters.

In swimming I have helped swimmers take part in one Olympic Games, three World Championships and two Commonwealth Games. They have won 24 National Open Championships, broken two Master’s World Records and broken 68 Open or Age Group National Records.

It is ironic therefore that I plan to devote this story to the third triathlon sport, a sport I know nothing about: cycling. In fact I only ever owned one bike. I bought it by trapping and killing opossums and selling the tokens for two shillings and six pence to the government. One thousand two hundred opossums died in order that I could become a bike owner. It was purchased from the Farmer’s Department Store in Auckland and delivered to the National Park Railway Station. I could not wait to get the bike home and proudly unpacked it at the station. I set off for home riding the black, gleaming machine along the station platform. My level of ambition however exceeded my level of skill and I crashed off the station platform on to the tracks of New Zealand Railway’s main trunk line. Bent, damaged and in need of serious repair I ended up carrying my new bike home.

Apart from that experience, my knowledge of the sport of cycling is limited to reading Lance Armstrong’s book, “It’s not about the Bike”. I am sure you would agree that all this is not a substantial background on which to base a story on the sport of cycling. However let’s give it a go anyway.

I see in today’s New Zealand Herald that the Sprint Coach of New Zealand cycling, Justin Grace, has resigned. Under normal circumstances that news would mean very little. However the comments made by a guy called Mark Elliot, a bureaucrat who calls himself the Bike New Zealand (BNZ) High Performance Director, made me stop and take a closer look at the resignation of Justin Grace. Here is what Elliot is reported to have said.

Elliott said an overseas coach would replace Grace. He says they’ll look at a short term option before ideally having a fulltime sprint coach when the centralised programme begins in Cambridge next year. BNZ is leaning on a sports science approach, in highly controlled velodromes which supported that approach. BNZ has five sports scientists to analyse data and set programmes

Oh my God, “a sports science approach”, “overseas coach”, “five sports scientists, “a centralized program”, does that sound familiar? Surely, that has to be the dark hand of Miskimmin? Was the infection spreading? Was this another sport about to wither and die; paralysed by Sport New Zealand meddling? And so I read on.

It seems that Justin Grace has done a terrific job of lifting the standard of New Zealand sprint cycling. It seems that Justin Grace has also done it his way; from a garage in East Auckland with cyclists who all have keys to his open home. It seems that “Grace’s boys” have much in common with a group once known as “Arthur’s boys”. But that’s not Miskimmin’s idea of how things should work. He doesn’t want a garage, no matter how successful. Miskimmin wants a Millennium empire.

I understand deeply the way Justin Grace feels; the hurt, the confusion, the anger. Like Lydiard, Jelley, and Laing, Justin Grace knows what it takes to win. And he knows Miskimmin and Baumann are wrong. He understands New Zealand’s problem. Just read what he says.

I’m not prepared to lead a program that has a different strategic plan from what I think is needed. Lack of respect from Bike NZ is the main reason for my departure. In the right environment with a nation that respects me as a coach then yes, I would take it. At the moment, I don’t have that support or respect from Bike NZ. All the fun and success and learning is outweighed by the fact I can’t work somewhere where I don’t feel respected. The job is not finished and those guys are very capable of being Olympic champions in 2016. I’ve shed a few tears since Monday. Those riders are like sons to me and big brothers to our daughters. What we had was unique, not just in New Zealand but throughout the world.

What a mess. But not for the first time, it seems. Grace joins other coaches Tim Carswell, Andy Reid and Ken Cools in leaving Bike New Zealand for various reasons. Bike New Zealand’s coaching history mirrors the coaching changes that have beset Swimming New Zealand. And that’s why Swimwatch promotes a federal structure of control. Federalism is better able to accommodate the eccentric, the gifted, the winners. Lydiard, Grace, Hillary, Allen and Laing do not fit into Miskimmin’s centralist, bureaucratic mould. They never will. Miskimmin’s world has no place for the informality of Lydiard’s sitting room in West Auckland or Laing’s broom-cupboard office under the stairs at Moana Pool or Grace’s garage in East Auckland. Those three locations won ten Olympic medals though.

Miskimmin is building a Soviet style sports empire, based on rules, systems, reports, procedures and a word he even has engraved in the new Swimming New Zealand Constitution, discipline. A week ago Swimming New Zealand finally announced their latest coaching purchase – David Lyles. The chances are he too will fail. If he fits the Miskimmin, Baumann mould, then he won’t be good enough to produce Olympic champions from New Zealand. If he is as good as the reports say he will find the Miskimmin, Baumann environment impossibly suffocating and like so many before will head out through the Miskimmin and Baumann well-worn revolving door.

Justin Grace – go well. My knowledge of riding a bike does not quite extend down the length of the National Park Railway Station platform. However I suspect you are another victim of Sport New Zealand. Our country’s sport and cycling in particular have just lost a good one.