Not much is happening in the world of New Zealand swimming. COVID lockdowns have pretty well brought an end to the best laid plans. Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) did publish their long list of swimmers under consideration for the Commonwealth Games. I’ve never understood the long list. Why have it at all?

For example, there is no way all, or even most of the 35 swimmers on the list are going to get anywhere near catching the flight to Birmingham. SNZ knows that. The Olympic Committee knows that. Even the author of the Facebook page “NZ Swim” knows that. And if he knows it, there is an owner of camels just outside of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia who is in on the secret as well.

And second, no one will ever convince me that if some unknown female swimmer from Ōpunake came to Auckland for the long course NZ Nationals and won the 100m freestyle in say 51.70 she would not be selected because Gary Francis didn’t know about her when he came up with the long list. Can you imagine the Game’s organiser’s attitude to missing out on a class swimmer because of a missed piece of New Zealand bureaucracy? If that then is the case, it begs the question, why have the list at all?

I imagine some readers are saying the likelihood of a swimmer currently training in the Ōpunake  River swimming 51.70 is slim. However, Faamausili, Gichard, Ashby and Moynihan doing something special in the USA would not be at all unusual. What is SNZ going to do then – not select them because they were not on the long list? It is a joke. Remember how pathetic Athletics NZ looked many years ago when an American based 400m hurdler was not selected because he was not on the list and had “only come third” in the US National Championships. Third in the US was probably third in the world – but bureaucracy won. Does SNZ really want to go there?

And finally remember when Peter Snell was ranked outside the world’s top 20 over 800m and was on no one’s long list. He was selected on potential. Someone in Athletics New Zealand took a punt. And guess what, Snell was born in Ōpunake and did come home from Rome with an Olympic Gold medal.

The problem with SNZ and NZOC long lists and pre-entry rules is they restrict the ability of swimming people like Gary Francis to run the business. They can’t take a punt. It is typical of what swimming under Layton and Cotterill has become. People, like Francis, who see talent in more places than the numbers on a stopwatch are being hogtied by Sport New Zealand sycophants with their long list bureaucracy. To hell with the long list. Let Francis pick what he thinks, feels, guesses is New Zealand’s best team. Let him manage the swimming side of the business. You put him there to do a job. Trust him to do it.

One other bit of semi-sporting news this week came from an American swimmer I used to help both in the USA and New Zealand. Before I knew Rhi Jeffrey she had won an Olympic Gold Medal for the 4×200 relay in Athens. Rhi is currently living and coaching outside of Boston. Those looking for a good coach could do a lot worse than contact Rhi.

With some justification Rhi is pissed-off at the awful interference in American politics by the “religious” right. She posted four quotes on her Facebook page from four founders of United States. These four men were well ahead of their time.

Thomas Jefferson – Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. 

John Adams – The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on Christian Religion.

Thomas Paine – All national institutions of churches whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit.

James Madison – Religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.

Clearly those old American buggers knew a thing or two. Their 2021 followers should read, learn and inwardly digest. Of course, their words have more relevance to the United States than New Zealand. However, the growing influence of nutters like Brian Tamaki and others shows the wisdom of the American founding fathers is not without relevance here as well.

It might pay anyone basing their reluctance to have a COVID vaccine on Tamaki’s behavior, to pause and consider the words of four much smarter men than the New Zealand charlatan.