The world governing body of swimming, FINA, has produced a document called the “POLICY ON ELIGIBILITY FOR THE MEN’S AND WOMEN’S COMPETITON CATEGORIES”. The Policy has been passed by the FINA Congress with a 71.5% majority. Well done FINA. The policy protects women’s sport. In swimming at least, gone are the days when Laurel Hubbard, Kate Weatherly and Lia Thomas could take advantage of their male puberty development to win by cheating in women’s sport.

The Policy is 24 pages, but the heart and soul of the Policy, the bit that really matters, is on page seven. Section 4, “Eligibility for the Women’s Category” says a swimmer can compete in women’s swimming only under the following conditions.

• Athletes who have previously used testosterone as part of female-to-male hormone treatment but are no longer following that treatment are eligible to compete in the women’s category in FINA competitions if they can establish that the testosterone use was for less than a year in total and did not take place during pubertal development, and their testosterone levels are back to pre-treatment normal, and any associated anabolic effects have been eliminated.
• Male-to-female transgender athletes (transgender women) are eligible to compete in the women’s category in FINA competitions if they can establish that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond the age of 11.
• Specifically, the athlete must produce evidence establishing that they have complete androgen insensitivity and therefore could not experience male puberty; or they are androgen sensitive but had male puberty suppressed beginning at age 11, and they have since continuously maintained their testosterone levels below 2.5 nmol/L.
• An unintentional deviation from the below 2.5 nmol/L requirement may result in retrospective disqualification.
• An intentional deviation from the below 2.5 nmol/L requirement may result in retrospective disqualification equal in length to periods imposed under anti-doping rules violations.

FINA has protected legitimate women’s sport. Well done to them. I see the policy also recommends local Federations, such as Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) adopt the FINA policy. I would have thought that, in the case of SNZ, adopting the policy was automatic. I’m sure there is a Constitutional requirement for SNZ to follow all FINA Rules. But to avoid doubt adopting this policy in New Zealand should be high on the SNZ Board’s next meeting agenda.

Today the sport of swimming took a major step forward. No male is ever going to be able to prove that from the age of 11 he/she was on anti-testosterone treatment continuously. If FINA introduce an “Open” category, then Lia Thomas can go swim there. But the Paris Olympic Games are, thankfully, no longer an option.   

PS – I have received a comment from a person whose opinions I respect. The comment said, “Transgender women do not transition to “cheat” in women’s sport”.

I apologise for my inference that this was the case. Of course, the transition decision is not made to cheat in women’s sport. A person making that decision should be supported and not vilified in any way.

So, what did I mean?

I meant that most sports have a constitutional duty to provide even and fair competition. The process of transition from male to female after the onset of puberty, followed by a decision to take part in women’s sport breaches that constitutional obligation. It is against most sports constitutional rules. Therefore, by definition, it is cheating.

Personally, I support the decision to transition, for whatever reason. Just do not then make the unconstitutional decision to breech the sports “fairness” rules by taking part in women’s events – unless of course the transgender swimmer can comply with the 11 years of age and continuous 2.5 testosterone rule.  

FINA have decided that must be clarified. Their policy statement today does that.

Last night Eyad swam in his heat of the 50m butterfly at the World Championships in Budapest. Before he left New Zealand to swim in the Mare Nostrum series of meets and in the World Championships, we discussed the purpose of his first international swimming trip. We agreed on two goals. First to gain much needed experience in the “real” swimming world and second to swim personal best times, culminating with his best swims at the Championships in Budapest.

And so, in the 50m butterfly, how has he done? Well, not too bad at all, I think, is the answer to that.

He has swum the 50m fly in four meets. The table below shows Eyad’s personal best time before leaving New Zealand and the results of the four races swum on the trip.

I have been fortunate enough to experience many athletes tour the world. Not one of them would be unhappy with that series of results. The following features stand out.

• Every swim has been progress. Believe me that is not easy to do on this type of journey. Hotels, travel, strange food and new pools can upset the effort to improve. But Eyad has managed it well, especially considering this is his first foreign trip.
• He has ended his 50m fly swims with two personal best times.
• His result in the World Championships was a huge 0.6 of a second personal best.
• Overall Eyad has improved from 25.89 to 25.27. That is 0.62 of a second, or 2.4%. To put that into context, the American Swim Coaches Association rule of thumb for a swimmer’s improvement is 3% per year. Eyad has improved by 2.4% in six weeks – not far short of twice the rate expected by the Americans.

So that’s the 50m fly done. Eyad has the 100m fly in four days. He has only swum the event twice. For his third swim to be a World Championship heat is, to say the obvious, unusual. His personal best is 59.79. I’m picking he will have a good shot at that time as well.

I will let you know. And finally, I would like to thank Team Manager, Gary Francis and Swimming New Zealand for their care and interest in Eyad during this trip. Eyad is a member of the Olympic World Refugee Team. Nevertheless, New Zealand has cared for him well. Their attention represents the very best in welcoming a refugee to New Zealand, in what New Zealand should stand for and what the best in sport is all about. Thank you.

PS – I watched Eyad’s race live on TV. It helps if you have a daughter who lives in the UK and can film her TV screen on WhatsApp and send it to New Zealand. The Brits are showing the Championships live.  Thank you Jane.

There is an important phrase in the Shakespearian play Julius Caesar that says, “Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees by which he did ascend.” I know Eyad would never do that. He has always been fully appreciative of where he began his career and the path he has taken.

Most Swimwatch readers will know Eyad is currently in Budapest competing in the World Swimming Championships. He is swimming as part of the World Refugee Team. And has just sent me this photo of two swimmers recruited by FINA to help the refugee swimmers at the championships. And what a photograph it is.  If anything “Looks into the clouds” this photograph does.

Eyad, of course, is holding the camera. But who are the other two? Swimming Gods is the answer.

First there is Ranomi Kromowidjojo. Here is what Wikipedia say about her swimming career.  

Ranomi Kromowidjojo born 20 August 1990 is a retired Dutch swimmer^] of mixed Dutch–Javanese Surinamese origin who mainly specialises in sprint freestyle events. She is a triple Olympic champion, winning the gold medal in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay at the 2008 Olympics, and in the 50 m freestyle and 100 m freestyle at the 2012 Olympics. Kromowidjojo holds the world record in the 50 meter freestyle short course, and as part of the Dutch team she holds the world records in the 4×50 m, 4 × 100 m, and 4 × 200 m freestyle relays (short course). She has won a total of 39 medals in FINA World Championship events.

And the third person in the photograph is another swimmer called Anthony Irvine. This is what Wikipedia says about his swimming career.

Anthony Lee Ervin born May 26, 1981 is an American competition swimmer who has won four Olympic medals and two World Championship golds. At the 2000 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal in the men’s 50-meter freestyle, and earned a silver medal as a member of the second-place United States relay team in the 4×100-meter freestyle event. He was the second swimmer of African descent after Anthony Nesty of Suriname to win an individual gold medal in Olympic swimming. He is the first United States citizen of African descent to medal gold in an individual Olympic swimming event.

Ervin stopped swimming competitively at the age of 22 in 2003^[5] and auctioned off his 2000 Olympic gold medal on eBay to aid survivors of the 2004 tsunami but he began to train again in 2011.

Ervin competed in the 50-meter freestyle event at the 2012 Summer Olympics where he placed fifth. At the 2016 Summer Olympics, 16 years after his first Olympic gold medal, he won the event for the second time, at the age of 35, becoming the oldest individual Olympic gold medal winner in swimming.

What an experience Eyad is having. And I have a feeling his journey is just beginning. Swim well Eyad.

Eyad is a member of the World Refugee Team about to compete in the World Swimming Championships. For five weeks Swimming New Zealand has allowed Eyad to join the New Zealand swimmers, first on the Mare Nostrum circuit and then in their Samorín, X-Bionic Sphere staging camp in Bratislava, Slovakia. Eyad and I are deeply grateful to Swimming New Zealand for including Eyad. Their assistance represents the very best in sport. Especially for a swimmer who has had a difficult start to his swimming career.

Tomorrow Eyad and the New Zealand swimmers end their training camp preparation. They will travel by bus the 194kms to Budapest. The Championships begin there on Saturday, 18 June. So how has the training camp gone?

Eyad tells me it could not have been better. The food, the accommodation, the swimming facilities, the weather, the team management and the coaches have been first class. We decided Eyad should do two weeks of steady, aerobic swimming after completing the Mare Nostrum circuit. We could have kept going with sprint training, but after talking to Coach Arch Jelley decided that for Eyad, two weeks of recovery was a better plan. The old expression, “keep the tiger in the tank” seemed to be the best option. And so, for two weeks, Eyad swam easy sets like 40×100 or 5×400 at a steady recovery pace. The swimming equivalent, you might say, of running around the Waitakere Ranges, here in Auckland.      

But before continuing with Eyad’s story I should mention that in just over one month Arch will have his 100^th birthday. His advice is as sound as ever. His contribution to questions such as: “do we keep sprinting or do we have a few weeks of aerobic swimming?” is invaluable. For forty years he has directed me past hundreds of training obstacles. Thank you Arch.

Only in the past week has Eyad gone back to speed training, culminating in a 50m butterfly trial this morning. We will only know if the decision to hold Eyad back has worked when he swims in the Championships. However so far, so good. His best time for 50m LC butterfly prior to this morning was 25.89. In the trial today he swam 25.40. Progress.

Eyad’s camp has not all been hard graft. He has an uncle who lives in Vienna. Each Sunday Eyad has been picked up and taken to Vienna to have lunch with his uncle’s family. Last Sunday Eyad was allowed to drive the 100kms. Sure enough, he ended up driving on the New Zealand side of the road. A reminder from his uncle got him back on the “right”.

Tomorrow then, Eyad and the New Zealand team head off for the culmination of this trip. Eyad will return to New Zealand a very different athlete from the one who left New Zealand six weeks ago. Thank you to the International and New Zealand Olympic Committees, FINA and Swimming New Zealand for making the opportunity possible. Well done to Eyad on taking advantage of his good fortune.

And God speed to Eyad and the other swimmers from New Zealand through next week’s World Championships.

I’ve spent quite some time in the United States. I graduated from high school there. I played for the school’s American football team. I stood while my class recited the Pledge of Allegiance, or my team sang the National Anthem. But one thing I never did was clasp my chest through either ritual. It wasn’t my Pledge of Allegiance or National Anthem. Besides New Zealanders are not into those jingoistic displays of patriotism. More than once I struggled to reconcile their brash heart holding with the three years it took them to join the rest of the world resisting the Nazis. And even then, Japan had to give them a hurry-up. Was all that heart holding patriotism just for show? When it came down to a real scrap with Hitler, or Israel’s genocide in Palestine, or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, all the heart holding meant nothing.

After some time in New Zealand, I went back to the United States to coach swimming in the US Virgin Islands and in Delray Beach, Florida. Once again, I witnessed the whole heart holding routine. Eventually the hypocrisy of it all made me sick. Pompous pricks standing there before every swim meet, holding their hearts, while their country was butchering those who lived in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. Were they really trying to tell me their hearts were as one with American slaughter around the world?

By the time I left America for the last time the whole pagan, heart holding liturgy represented death, decay, and treachery. It was the worst of America and America could keep it.

Except I was wrong. America did not keep it. They exported their jingoism to New Zealand. First it was T.J. Perenara. God knows where he got the idea from. But there he is clasping his heart through the National Anthem while every other All Black stands in dignified respect, the way New Zealanders have always done. The best non-selection the All Blacks’ coach, Ian Foster, made this week, was to drop Perenara. At least we won’t have to endure his grotesque display during the National Anthem.

But heart holding didn’t stop with Perenara. Next thing we knew was the New Zealand football team had been ordered to practice the Americanism. There they are, eleven mindless Statues of Liberty, standing to order, with their hands clasped over their fake hearts. No wonder soccer has never taken off in New Zealand. The game is made for wimps and played by wimps. That team really is pathetic. Their pre-match display makes a lie of everything patriotic about our country. They are an embarrassment to us all.

Without question I hope New Zealand gets beaten out of sight in the World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica. It would save us the shame of watching NZ soccer’s overt display of Americanism. There is no sincerity in it, even in the United States. For a New Zealand team, it looks fake and stupid. If it is “in the bonds of love we meet”, NZ football should avoid the mannerisms of the most militant nation on earth.

I wonder if Perenara and NZ Soccer know that prior to World War II, Americans used the outstretched right hand, Nazi salute during their National Anthem. Out of embarrassment the hand over heart replacement was only adopted after the war. The action may have changed, the purpose is the same. The gesture was probably more honest when the whole country did the Nazi salute.  

I guess Donald Trump would like those in NZ who copy the Americans. Perhaps NZ Soccer is pushing to have the bone-spur soldier as their patron. They certainly deserve each other. Go Costa Rica.