It has long been my view that the inhabitants of Swimming New Zealand’s (SNZ) Antares Place offices are destroying the sport. Like some terminal disease the deterioration is relentless, membership and results are irresistibly slipping away. An occasional flicker of life is merely a temporary glimmer of hope. While those responsible for the care of swimming remain, nothing can change the sport’s fatal descent into oblivion.

It will come as no surprise to hear that in my view blame for swimming’s problems lies with its administration; not the coaches, not the swimmers and not the officials. Antares Place inmates are wrecking a good sport.

The most recent measure of the creeping decline came last weekend at the SNZ Open Water Championship in Lake Taupo. New Zealand swimming took a significant and serious step backwards. The incompetence of Cotterill, Johns and Francis was once more cruelly exposed.

The following four tables show what I mean. The first table shows the time swum by the winner of the men’s 2019 10k event – 2.03.07. Further down the table the winning times for previous years and the average of the previous year’s swims are shown. What do the figures tell us?

1. The 2019 swim (2.03.07) is the slowest winning time in seven years
2. The 2019 swim is 4.54 minutes behind the average winning time (1.58.53) of the past seven years.
3. The winner of the 2019 race would be about 500 meters behind the average winner of the race in the past seven years.

MEN

Now let’s look at the same data for the women’s 10k race. This information is shown in the next table. Sadly the women’s story is very similar to the men.

1. The 2019 swim is the slowest winning time (2.12.17) in seven years
2. The 2019 swim is 3.08 minutes behind the average winning time (2.09.09) of the past seven years.
3. The winner of the 2019 race would be about 250 meters behind the average winner of the race in the past seven years.

WOMEN

It seems clear – for both men and women the 2019 winning time is significantly slower. Winning the national open water New Zealand title was not as tough in 2019 as it was in the seven previous years. But while winning the race in 2019 was easier what about the quality of the open water competition. The 2019 winner was slower but was the winner pushed harder by those who ended up second and third? What do the times say about the depth of the field? Or did the second and third placed swimmers in 2019 also swim slower than in previous years.

The next table below attempts to answer that question. The table shows the times of the first three place-getters in the 2019 men’s race and for previous years back to 2013. The three times for each year are then averaged to show the average time swum by the first three swimmers. What does this data tell us about the quality of New Zealand open water swimming?

1. The average time of the first three place getters in 2019 (2.03.48) was the slowest in seven years.
2. The 2019 place-getters were on average 4.02 minutes behind their equivalent place-getters who averaged 1.59.48 in the previous seven years.
3. The 2019 place-getters were on average 350 metres behind their equivalent place-getters in the previous seven years.

MEN

Now let’s look at the same data for the women’s race. This information is shown in the next table. On this occasion the results for women are better than for men. However they are still not good.

1. The average time of the first three place getters in 2019 (2.14.65) was the third slowest in seven years. The three place-getters in 2019 were faster than the three place-getters in 2015 and 2017.
2. The 2019 place-getters were on average 2.57 minutes slower than their equivalent place-getters who averaged 2.12.08 in the previous seven years.
3. The 2019 place-getters were on average 230 metres behind their equivalent place-getters in the previous seven years.

WOMEN

The standard of open water swimming in New Zealand has declined. Of course I accept that water conditions, weather and the placement of buoys can make a big difference to open water times. I have no doubt SNZ defenders will claim that conditions in the Taupo event make this post theoretical nonsense. However the universally bad result of almost every comparison is significant. Conditions in Taupo this year cannot excuse the poor performance compared to previous years. The huge gap of several minutes and several hundred meters between 2019 and previous year’s results suggests the general conclusion of a serious SNZ open water problem is pretty accurate.

Congratulations Cotterill, Francis and Johns. Another year has gone by and it sure looks like your contribution to New Zealand’s open water swimming has been a disaster. Overall this 2019 open water result represents a backward step of about 3%. And that disaster is again the fault of Antares Place incompetence. What on earth are we paying you for?