National sporting federations change for many reasons. Good administrators might detect a need for reform. Governments can order a professional review. Remember when Swimming New Zealand had three government reviews in four years. Bill Sweetenham wrote one. Then Chris Ineson prepared what was probably the best analysis of Swimming New Zealand’s problems. Swimming should have paid more attention to Ineson’s findings. Swimming is a poorer place for sweeping Ineson’s findings under the carpet. And finally in 2011 Chris Moller came up with the disastrous Moller Report. Swimming is still suffering under the burden of his anti-democratic, anti-elite performance, anti-membership findings. The sport has Moller to thank for the terrible decisions that have resulted from appointing Board members with little or no responsibility to the membership. Layton and Cotterill both came via the Moller Report. What the 1938 Treaty of Munich was to world peace, the Moller Report has been to successful management at Swimming New Zealand.

However the reform I like best comes from the participating members. I don’t mean officials or parents or coaches. I mean change that has its origin in the views and opinions of the people who swim or run or play the game.

Look at the reforms that flowed from the decision of Tony Greig to take on the ICC. We wouldn’t have one day cricket or 20/20 without his courageous stand. It was the resolution of Ken Rosewell and Rod Laver that brought professionalism to tennis. Although Josh Kronfield and Stewart Wilson were the first players to sign professional contracts with the NZRFU, it was the rebellion of Sean Fitzpatrick that opened rugby’s professional door.

In New Zealand athletics Valerie Adams quietly went to the Minister of Sport, Murray McCully and said she was not going to be part of Miskimmin’s centralized sausage machine. She demanded and won the right to be paid while she prepared, in her own way, wherever in the world she wanted. Adam’s resolve meant that Miskimmin’s centralized training plans for New Zealand athletics were dead. The success of Willis, Walsh and McCartney has been the result.

Sadly New Zealand swimming has not had a Valerie Adams. The closest we’ve got is Lauren Boyle. She has had her rebellious moments; and the sport is the better for them.

In response to a vicious, mean and, I believe, entirely in Bone’s character, attack on her she said this.

“Radio Sport NZ enquired about having a chat, but can wait until hell freezes over for anything from me. Straight after my races at Rio de Janeiro Radio Sport aired an unjustified character attack on me by an ex Swimming New Zealand official. No apology or retraction was forthcoming. What Mr Bone would know about my illness, fightback, or for that matter anything much around elite competition, I could write on a small piece of rice paper. Age group swimming; maybe!”

Go Lauren. When Boyle couldn’t stand being coached by David Lyles, and I don’t blame her for that, she quietly went to Swimming New Zealand and said she was going to Australia to train – make it happen. There was not a lot of public drama about much that Lauren Boyle did. In fact, on most occasions, she seemed to tow the party line. However the character she demonstrated in leaving the Millennium Institute and insisting on the right to follow her own training plan was really the beginning of the end for Swimming New Zealand’s multi-million dollar experiment in centralised training. If Swimming New Zealand’s so-called elite program was not good enough for Lauren Boyle, why should anyone else go there?

But the courage of Lauren Boyle is the exception in New Zealand swimming. Boyle stood up to Bone and Lyles while she was still swimming. And, of course, that is important – taking a stand when you have everything to lose, takes character.

The norm in New Zealand is for swimmers to speak up after they have retired and have nothing to lose. For example long after he had retired Danyon Loader said this about Swimming New Zealand.

“Loader says Swimming NZ has never had a good administrative framework. This was the case even during the peak of his career, when he was winning Olympic gold medals and breaking world records, and he says reform is vital.

“There’s never been a good model in place. Even during my career, the best interests of swimmers were not at heart. It can only get better from there. It really needs a shake-up, it needs to start again.”

Within a week of announcing his retirement Moss Burmester was also critical of Swimming New Zealand. This is how it was reported on the Stuff website.

Burmester said SNZ was letting top swimmers down at both day-to-day training level and when teams came together for major meets.

“It’s more the atmosphere at Swimming New Zealand and how things are being run there at the moment. The lack of trust really,” he said. “As you get older you become aware of it and you don’t fit the mould quite so well.”

He was being “diplomatic” by not naming names but said he would speak out if Sparc don’t improve the situation for younger swimmers, many of whom he knew had issues with the administration.

Loader and Burmester’s views are important. They are good. They are correct and they needed to be said. However they would have been so much more effective if; like Boyle and Adams, they had spoken up before they retired; before they had nothing to lose. Their views are right, but they lack courage. And that is a quality demanded of every leader.

And so if you have a complaint, if you object to the way the sport is being run, say something: send an email, put it on Facebook, send out a Tweet, make a banner and tow it behind a low flying airplane. Don’t sit around putting up with bad administration. Don’t wait until you retire. Don’t be afraid that you won’t get picked for a New Zealand team. Because, remember this, Swimming New Zealand needs you far more than you need them. If you are fast enough they’ll take you no matter what you’ve said. You have the ultimate power. Their wages, paid from Sport New Zealand, depend on how fast you swim. That gives you power. Use it to create the sport you want, not what Swimming New Zealand orders you to accept. That is what the example of Boyle, Adams, Fitzpatrick, Rosewell and Greig has taught us all.