By David
Over the years I have been fortunate enough to attend quite a few swim meets. I’ve been to Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, World Championships, ninety-six World Cups, six Mare Nostrum series, Pan Pacific Games, Pan American Games, Caribbean and Central American Games and National Championships in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and New Zealand.
As you would expect there has been the good, the bad and the very ugly. The title for the biggest meet has to belong to the Fort Lauderdale International held each summer in Florida. Let me tell you, it’s just bloody huge – two 50 metre pools going flat out all day to get through the heats and one pool working during the evening to clear the finals. I’ll tell you how big it is. They have to employ an American Airlines 757 Captain just to run the Meet Manager results system for the four days. You don’t believe me? Well his name is Jay Thomas and if you’re ever on a plane with a problem just hope he’s the guy up front sorting it out. The way I’ve seen him run the Fort Lauderdale International, he can fix anything.
The meet that looks after coaches the best is the USA National Championships. For most readers, I realize, coaches’ hospitality is not a life and death issue. However, if you are a coach, it is very nice to relax in your own air conditioned sitting room with big comfy chairs and couches, pay TV, drinks and food to die for – try steaks and salad, strawberries and ice cream. And it’s all free. Did you hear that Swimming New Zealand, free, gratis, nothing. No wonder American swimming is as good as it is. Every coach is fighting to get back to the National Championships to eat better than they do at home.
The world’s worst official was at the Caribbean and Central American Games. One of my swimmers was disqualified in a breaststroke race. The disqualification notice contained more errors than a Puerto Rican airline timetable. It was dated the previous year, the lane was wrong and the infringement rule number referred to the rules for backstroke not breaststroke. And it was all in Spanish which made comprehension difficult. I decided to protest. Well, I have never seen the like; the Mexican referee went into orbit. His tirade was a difficult mixture of Spanish and English. However I did manage to pick up his last sentence. “You are,” he said, “the sort of person that would get rapists off on a technicality.” Wow, I never realized 100 meters breaststroke was quite that important.
The meet that should never be held in its current location is the New Zealand Short Course Championships. The Kilbirnie Pool is not a suitable venue for a national meet. For years they started every race at the shallow end in water well below the minimum standard required by FINA rules. I protested. On some spurious grounds they rejected my protest. However the meet was shifted to the other, deep end of the pool. What they still haven’t fixed is the current that flows along the Kilbirnie pool. Imagine it – a national swimming championships swum in the Arateatea Rapids. It’s illegal and it’s ridiculous.
The most competitive meet I’ve attended is easily the NCAA National Championships. Ah but, I hear you say, what about the Olympic Games? Well, believe me for cut throat competition the NCAA Championships are tougher than the Olympic Games. I doubt there is a swimmer alive, who has been to both, who would disagree. You see the NCAAs are not restricted by the two swimmers per country rule. That means a bus load of very good Americans turn up to compete in every event. The NCAAs also allow as many good non-American swimmers to compete as want to take advantage of the USA’s kind offer of educating them for free. It is a truly international event with no fake Olympic restrictions on who can compete. If you are good enough you can swim. I know Swimming New Zealand would like to convince the world that their precious Millennium Institute was the making of Lauren Boyle. But that’s rubbish. I saw Lauren Boyle compete in the NCAAs while my daughter Jane was also taking part. The steel hard competitor that is Boyle today was fired and tempered in the white hot furnace of NCAA competition; the toughest meet in the world.
So, where is the world’s best swim meet? Well, I’ve just entered the West Auckland Aquatics’ swimmers in the 2014 event. Sound of trumpets – the best swim meet in the world is the Hawkes Bay Poverty Bay Championships held in Gisborne, New Zealand. For some reason the administrators who run HBPB Swimming stopped the Championships for a few years. But in 2014 the meet is back – and about time. So why is it the world’s best swim meet? Well first the facility. The main 50 meter pool is housed in a huge tent that allows a sea breeze to cool the East Coast sun. It’s fresh, it’s bright and it’s a pleasant place to be. Then there’s the location; on the beach looking out across Poverty Bay towards Cape Kidnappers. The meet program is an interesting mix of individual events and relays. The inter-city relay is unusual and great fun. And, just in case I hear any readers muttering about poor competition, it is wise to remember the number of good swimmers that have swum in the HBPB Championships either as natives or as visitors. In the 1960s John Palmer was easily New Zealand’s fastest freestyle sprinter. In the same era, Quentin Todd and Allan Christie were the country’s best distance swimmers. Sandra Whittleston, John Coutts, William Benson, Daniel Bell, and Sharron Musson swam for New Zealand in the Olympic Games. Other stars include national record holders Emily Thomas, Rachael Anderson and Julie McLaughlin. Of the swimmers coached by me, national representatives, Jane Copland, Toni Jeffs and Nichola Chellingworth were regular visitors. And, lest we forget, the current Comet Club coach, Greg Meade was once a HBPB superstar. So have no fear there’s plenty of competition at the HBPB Championships.
But what I like most is the whole atmosphere of the event. It’s a perfect union of serious swimming and a fun weekend in the sun. It’s a really fast picnic meet and I love it.
So there you have it my choice of the world’s best swim meet. I see entries don’t close until 5.00pm on Tuesday 9th January 2014. Give it a go. I’m sure you will swim fast and I know you’ll have fun
