Archive for the ‘ Europe ’ Category

Berlin! Berlin! Wir Fahren Nach Berlin!

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

By David

Fans of the beautiful game may recognise the title of this post. It is the popular chant soccer fans used during the 2006 Berlin World Cup finals. In English it means, “Berlin! Berlin! We’re going to Berlin!” It came to mind during a conversation I had this morning with my daughter Jane. She lives in London but is about to leave for a weekend holiday in the German capital. Describing Berlin she called it, “The home town of two of our family’s national records.”

It was not a thought I’d ever had before. But she was right.

On August 17 1979 Alison ran 1000 meters in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. That was back in the days when the Berlin Wall divided the city and communism ruled the eastern portion of the German state. On the morning before Alison’s run we visited Checkpoint Charlie, one of the very few passes through the wall; between East and West. America’s best 400 meter hurdler at the time, James King, decided he wanted a closer look over the wall and climbed high into a convenient tree. I was horrified to see him leaning out of the tree giving a well practiced central finger salute to a dangerous looking, Kalashnikov armed, East German guard. On closer inspection, the guard looked bored by the whole thing. I suspect he may have been insulted by brash westerners many times before.

Without doubt Berlin’s Olympic Stadium is the World’s finest athletic track. I visited the plaque commemorating New Zealander, Jack Lovelock’s 1500 meter victory in the 1936 Olympic Games. I stood on the concrete plinth used by Hitler to watch the Games. The atmosphere and the sense of history were without peer. Alison’s performance matched the setting. Her time of 2:38.54 ranked her fifth in the world that year and set a New Zealand Open Woman’s Record for the event. Thirty two years later it is still the National Record; the fastest time run by a New Zealand woman.

Twenty one years after Alison’s run, in early 2000, our fifteen year old daughter, Jane, was also competing in Berlin; not in track and field but in swimming. By this time the wall had gone and Germany was unified. In fact the pool in which the World Cup took place had been built in the heart of the old East Berlin. The meet was an important one for Jane. Weeks earlier in Australia, New Zealand National Coach, Brett Naylor, told her he thought she was not nearly a good enough swimmer to be competing on the European World Cup circuit, and called her an embarrassment to her country. I’ve very seldom seen Jane cry, but she did that night. However, in Berlin it took her 1:06.33 to put the record straight. That’s the time it took her to swim 100 meters IM. That’s also the time that made her a New Zealand 15 Years Age Group record holder. I guess it’s true; he (or she) who laughs last, laughs longest.

In that trip Jane went on to swim well in Imperia, Italy and Paris, France. But Berlin alone remained as, “The home town of two of our family’s national records.”

Jane’s first Open Woman’s record was about as far from the history, glamour and majesty of Berlin as you can imagine. She set that record over 200 meters breaststroke in the small Hawkes Bay agricultural town of Waipukerau. From Berlin to Waipukerau, that’s part of the fun of sport.

The photograph below shows Alison and Jane posing in their respective New Zealand track suits – both of which saw service in the German capital, Berlin.
Jane Copland and Alison Wright

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Swimming Training Camps

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010

By David

An important element in any democracy is the protected right to question those who lead. Governments and their bureaucracies need to be accountable. When representatives spend tax payer’s money on hotel video porn it is appropriate for them to be asked to explain. That is not dissent. It is not even unreasonable. It is good government.

With this in mind it is appropriate to question a report published this week on the New Zealand swim team’s trip to the Mare Nostrum Barcelona and Canet meets and an eleven day training camp after the competition. There is much in the report that is difficult to understand. We will not print the whole thing here. It’s a bit long for that, but we will reproduce those points that raise puzzling questions. Questioning the tour’s report should not be mistaken as a criticism of the athletes involved. Swimwatch is on record as supporting fine performances by these swimmers at World Cups and New Zealand Championships. Our concern is what they were asked to do and not how they did it.

From the outset it was difficult to understand the purpose of the trip. Early in the tour a separate report began its coverage with:

“They have just stepped off the plane after 36 hours flying to Barcelona from New Zealand 24 hours previously, are still in heavy training. [sic]”

That has always seemed strange to me. Why would you spend $30,000 or $40,000 flying a team to the other side of the world to race the planet’s best athletes and own up to being badly prepared – arriving late and still in heavy training? If it’s worth the cost of flying to Spain to find good competition it seems important to arrive in a fit condition to race properly. Presumably that’s why you find good competition – to race them properly. It’s difficult to find a meet these days when the New Zealand team is not “still in heavy training”. It leaves the impression of preparing an excuse ahead of time should things go wrong at the meet. Or perhaps it’s true; rest for New Zealand swimmers is restricted to once every two years; to the week before a Commonwealth or Olympic Games.

The Mare Nostrum series involves three meets; one each in Monte Carlo, Canet and Barcelona. On this trip the New Zealand team skipped the one in Monte Carlo. That doesn’t seem like good economics; to fly all that way and only swim in two of the three meets. Doing all three gives 33% more racing for maybe 6% more cost; at least that’s the way it worked out the four times I’ve done these meets. Similarly why were the team taken to Narbonne for their training camp. There is nothing wrong with Narbonne. It’s a nice town with a good pool. But the New Zealand team had just finished racing down the road in Canet which is a nicer town, a better pool, has far cheaper accommodation and the team was already there. The last time I was in Canet, in 2009, we rented a lovely French villa for four swimmers for $1000 for the entire week. I bet Narbonne cost New Zealand more than that.

I notice the report on the trip says the swimmers were put through a “punishing training regime.” We are told “they worked their tails off for two weeks in France.” The report then defines the “punishing training regime” as “130kms of training in the 11 days in Narbonne with three training sessions a day.” I struggle to understand how swimming 130 kilometers in 11 days; that’s a rate of only 82 kilometers a week, qualifies as punishing; not when 90 to 100 kilometers a week is the standard training fare for just about every swimmer New Zealand is about to race in the Pan Pacific Games. At three sessions a day the New Zealander’s average training distance was something less than 4000 meters a session which stretches the definition of “punishing” just a bit.

The Nation’s best swimmers got through their 82 kilometer week, we are told, because:

“We trained outdoors in an excellent facility so it was pretty pleasant. We would have struggled to achieve the same level of performance with this sort of training block at home.”

What on earth is the matter with that Millennium Pool? Before Prime Minister John Key invests $40million upgrading the facility someone should tell him that New Zealand’s best swimmers find swimming 80 kilometers a week in the current 50 meter pool a real struggle. I’ve seen 100 kilometers a week swum many times in the Clive Pool in Hawkes Bay, in the Swimgym Pool in Hastings, in a four lane pool in the US Virgin Islands, in the Onekawa Aquatic Center in Napier, in the Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre, in an open air pool in Florida and in the Freyberg Pool in Wellington. The Clive Pool is unventilated (unless someone leaves the doors open), has almost no lighting and no windows. It could handle someone swimming 20 kilometers a week further than the New Zealand team managed in France. God knows what problems must exist at the Millennium Institute Pool to make a very modest weekly mileage of 80 kilometers such a struggle.

The report concludes with a look into the future. “Our main emphasis will be the Commonwealth Games. Pan Pacs will be a tougher level meet and we will be looking to swim fast there. If you don’t swim fast in the morning heat you don’t get a second swim.” That’s another thing I’ve never really understood. If winning at the London Olympics is New Zealand Swimming’s primary goal, why on earth choose the easy meet now as the center of your attention. Clearly Pan Pacs is recognized as the tougher meet. In that case and if you are at all serious about winning anything in London that’s the meet you should be chasing. After all, that’s the meet where Burmester needs to beat Phelps and Thomas needs to finish ahead of Couglin. But, no, New Zealand’s “main emphasis” is the easy option. That seldom wins an Olympic Games.

Posted in Europe, New Zealand, Racing, Training | No Comments »

It’s Official

Monday, May 31st, 2010

By David

My New Zealand doctor warned me that the new blood pressure drug he was recommending could result in strange, very vivid dreams. I didn’t believe the guy. That sort of psychological claptrap doesn’t happen to a bloke who enjoys a New Zealand pie or likes nothing better than watching the Steelers play the Bears on a wet, bitterly cold afternoon in Chicago. I was wrong.

During most of last night I was the laundry minder for senior athletes on the world track series. I wandered through China, two or three Middle East nations and most of Europe taking care of dirty track suits and cleaning Nike running spikes. I am pretty certain the last thing the world’s best track athletes want is some West Auckland swimming coach anywhere near their laundry. And for even dreaming this invasion I apologize. Perhaps the very long day I had at a swim meet yesterday had caused my mind to wander.

Actually it was an interesting day that once again highlighted the distinction between good officials and those who should really be doing something else. In Florida a chap called Jay Thomas was one of the best. I believe his job as an American Airlines senior Captain contributed to his calm handling of a dozen of swimming’s minor crises. If a flock of geese decided to fly through the engine of my airplane above New York, I’d be happy if Jay Thomas was up front taking care of business. The way he handled the Meet Manager job when two 50 meter pools were going flat out was better entertainment that watching the swimming.

I did not feel the same about another Florida swimming official, Leslie Lunak. Several years ago we had a debate about a swimmer’s entry at a swim meet. After it was sorted out she offered to shake hands and said clearly and in front of others that the matter ended there. A week later she complained to the President of Florida Gold Coast that I had argued with her. He is now in jail but at the time he sent me a letter saying “don’t argue with officials”, which is ironic given that the real moral of the story is “don’t trust Leslie Lunac”.

Anyway yesterday, after a very good swimmer was disqualified, the question of the timing of the fly kick in the breaststroke pull out became relevant. The rule in question was FINA rule 7.1. This is what it says.

SW 7.1 After the start and after each turn, the swimmer may take one arm stroke completely back to the legs during which the swimmer may be submerged. A single butterfly kick is permitted during the first arm stroke, followed by a breaststroke kick.

The question was whether the fly kick was still legal if it was performed after the swimmer had completed the pull but still has their arms extended downward along their sides. In other words was the stroke “completed” after the pull or after the pull and the recovery of the arms to the extended above the swimmers head position? If the pull and recovery represented a full stroke then a “late” kick was legal. If just the pull represented a full stroke then a late kick was a DQ offence. Rule 7.1 is ambiguous on this point.

The responsible official at the Auckland meet was a lady called Jill. She’s been an official in Auckland for as long as I can remember. She also has the quiet, honest demeanour of a Jay Thomas; a quality acquired, I suspect from a life time of listening to excited coaches, parents and swimmers argue their cause.

In this case she asked to see the swimmer do the turn with the “delayed” kick in the pool’s diving well. She went and consulted the meet’s senior officials and came back with a decision that the word “stroke” in the FINA rule included both the pull and recovery stages. Therefore a fly kick done between the two stages was legal. It was still being done part way through the single stroke. Just as important as the outcome was the way the question was handled. No one was threatened; no one’s integrity was being questioned. An interesting interpretation of the rules was being resolved. And that’s the way it should be.

It is off the subject but an area where New Zealand swimming has it all over the Americans is in the disqualification procedure. In New Zealand every athlete gets a signed form detailing the offence, the Rule number, the name of the IOT and Referee and their signature. In other words New Zealand does what FINA rules require. In America that might happen at the National Championships but in most other meets the first the athlete knows of their crime is when their name appears on the list of results with the dreaded initials DQ. Even then it can take a full FBI and CIA investigation to find out what the DQ was for. I had a relay team disqualified in Florida once and only heard about it a week later through one of the swimmer’s parents. I complained only to discover the parent had got the cause of the disqualification story completely wrong. That whole mess could have been avoided if the meet officials had handed out properly completed disqualification forms.

An official in Florida told me they could not complete and distribute the forms because the meets in the US were so huge. That’s just nonsense. If it’s worth putting on a meet its worth doing properly. Disqualifying someone can be quite traumatic. Officials need to explain why they made that decision. If yesterday is anything to go by they seem to be able to do it well in Auckland, New Zealand. They should be able to do it just as well in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

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Fiasco in Europe

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

By David

Hate is a strong word; not to be used lightly. It pretty much sums up the way I feel about travel stories. You know the ones? This is Uncle Bill holding up the Leaning Tower in Pisa or Aunt Mary trying to make the guard at Buckingham Palace laugh or Doris, who’s into genealogy, inspecting her great, great grandmother’s grave in a church yard just outside Dorking. After long overseas trips friends of my parents’ would often come to our place for an evening of slides showing us the places they’d been. I must have seen a thousand shots of clouds out the aeroplane window leaving Auckland or arriving in London. It beats me how they knew the difference. The clouds sure looked the same.

To the best of my knowledge, Jane is prepared to discuss just about any subject with her father. Politics – she’s slightly left of even me, religion – Jane’s school cured us both, gossip – great and often and hypocrisy – condemned above all else; very little is on her taboo list.

And so, throwing caution to the wind, I am now going to tell you a travel story that eleven years after it took place Jane still refuses to discuss.

I got the idea leaving the Clive Memorial Pool. That was my first mistake. No one has ever had a good idea leaving the Clive Pool. With some perspicacity Jane once described the pool as “If concrete could burn, it would smell like the Clive Pool. Imagine it for a second. Old, dirty concrete soaked in chlorine, on fire.” My idea was that instead of flying between the World Cup swim meets in Europe we should hire a camper van – in America they are called them recreation vehicles. The next day I visited Air New Zealand’s travel office in Hastings and booked the van. We would pick it up in downtown Amsterdam and drive to the first meet in Paris, then on to Gelsenkirchen in Germany, Imperia in Italy and back to Amsterdam to fly home.

I convinced a very young Jane our journey of 2181 miles (3490 kilometers) would be the experience of a life time. We’d park beside Dutch canals, trundle through Monet’s Field of Poppies, climb through the peaks and cols of the Swiss Alps and cruise the bays and coves of the Italian Riviera.

Unfortunately it wasn’t quite like that. We had no problem collecting the van and set off on the 310 mile (496 kilometer) trip to Paris. About 200 miles later we arrived in Lille and I took a wrong turn. All night I drove east wondering why the 100 miles to Paris was taking so long. The sign “Welcome to Luxembourg” didn’t seem right so I stopped to check. I had driven 343 miles in the wrong direction and was now 303 miles away from Paris. It took all that day to get to Paris. After 846 miles (1343 kilometers) and 24 hours in the van Jane was expected to swim the World Cup heats in just ten hours. I relented and booked her into one of the team hotels. She managed a personal best in the 50 butterfly. She always was a tough little bugger and on that occasion showed it in full measure.

The next meet was in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. We had time so decided to stop for a night in Loan, the picture perfect ancient French capital. Finally we were experiencing the joys of motoring through Europe. At about three in the morning I was woken by someone banging on the van door. Foolishly, and against Jane’s advice, I opened the door. In very broken English, a man in his early twenties explained that he and his girl friend had parked under trees not far from the van. Their car was stuck in the mud. Could we pull them out? I got out to inspect the problem and discovered that the car was deeply buried. There was no way we could do anything about it until the morning. I was also surprised by the partially clothed appearance of his girl friend. Perhaps, I said, we could call the local police to help. No, he didn’t want that. They would wait until the morning. I went back to van and slept until seven when four police cars came screaming by full of lights and sirens. Several policemen surrounded the car and advanced towards it with hands poised over their revolvers. I started the van and headed towards Germany. Jane was right – don’t open the door to strangers at 3.00 in the morning.

The Gelsenkirchen World Cup went well. Jane had a good meet and swam another personal best in the 100 IM, which was also a Wellington regional record at the time. Our only van problem was a punctured front tire. However I changed the tire without too much difficulty and set out on the 708 mile (1132 kilometers) leg to our next stop in Imperia, Italy. It was a warm Sunday. For 200 miles everything was fine until, just south of Frankfurt, near a small town called Weinheim, we blew another tire. A passing German motorist called a tow truck. We were taken to a garage and told we would need to wait until the morning to have both tires repaired. It was lunch time the next day before that was done and we set off again for Imperia – 500 miles away. That might not sound like much but this particular 500 miles is over the massive Col de St. Bernard that separates Switzerland and Italy and through a 40 mile series of narrow lanes and alleys that lead into Imperia. Finally, at 3.00 am, we pulled into the parking lot beside Imperia’s “Piscina Felice Cascione”. Jane’s first heat was just five hours away.

Two days later we hit the road again for the 815 mile (1304 kilometer) journey back to Amsterdam. We picked up an interesting English hitchhiker on the way who guided us into Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. A few hours later we deposited the van back in Amsterdam and sank gratefully into KLM seats for the 14 hour flight to Singapore. There are two morals to this story. If you are doing the World Cup circuit, it may be boring but go by air. And the second – if you ever have a good idea leaving the Clive Memorial Swimming Pool, do something else.

That was the same trip I had to chase a thief in Amsterdam Airport who snatched and ran off with a bag containing our passports and money. Fortunately I caught him and rescued our belongings. Back in New Zealand on the trip from the airport in Auckland to Napier, our car, the “Blue Beast” broke down and we arrived in Napier on the back of an AA recovery truck. My wife Alison seemed to think it was all very funny.

And Jane? Well she still won’t talk about it.

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The South of France and Other Stuff

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

By David

While money can’t buy swimming success, without money swimming success is very difficult. About eight months ago a generous corporate sponsor accepted this proposition and gave our team $10,000. With this help, could we lift the standard of the team’s fastest swimmers? Could we provide a generation of young swimmers with home grown role models? It was well worth a try, so here is what we did.

No – one moment – first, let me tell you the result. The team’s fastest swimmers did improve. Remember, we are a small team, so please don’t compare our modest results with North Baltimore, Fort Lauderdale or Mecklenburg. A Boeing 747 and a Piper Arrow both fly, but there the comparison should end. We completed the summer season with one male swimmer going a 50 second 100 LCM freestyle, two others swimming 52 seconds, and a fourth who swims 55. Our best 50 LCM swimmer went 23.32 and our new club records in the 50 and 100 LCM butterfly are 24.17 and 55.95. The 50 time is a new Masters 30-34 World Record. Our team ended the season with three Master’s US National Championship titles. We also lured back into swimming my daughter, Jane, who was once New Zealand’s national champion and Open Record Holder in the 200 breaststroke. And in triathlon one athlete from the team qualified for the 2009 Hawaiian World Ironman Championship.

Even our team’s most rabid critics, and there are a few of those, should accept that having a swimmer go 50 seconds in the 100, winning three US Masters titles and holding one FINA Master’s World Record is not bad progress for a team that, four years ago, had eight swimmers. Best of all, we are well poised to move forward from these modest beginnings.

And so how did it happen. Well, we went to Europe. We spent a week at the French Font Romeu national high altitude training camp. It is a beautiful spot, high in the Pyrenees where Lance Armstrong and his mates toil. The air might be thin, but it’s crisp and clean. The scenery is stunning. Alpine forests cover endless mountain slopes, broken only by ski trails winding and descending into small French villages. Fantastic cafés serve lunch with food only the French know how to prepare. All this and a 50 meter pool, a weight room, three meals a day including free wine, a free medical center and individual rooms for $45 a day.

We spent another three days in Barcelona competing in the first stop of the 2009 Mare Nostrum series. I’m a junky for the internationalism of it all. The teams from everywhere, the familiar central city pool, the world class competition, the busy city, the tourists; it’s great. For transport, our team relied on a nine seat Mercedes van and a two door, Mercedes SLK convertible. The SLK was monopolized by Skuba and Jane, who claim they never once drove it too fast. Skuba had a good meet and swam personal bests in the 50 and 100 freestyle.

And so we moved on to my favorite town, the French coastal village of Canet. I love it there; it’s so European, so Mediterranean, so intensely French. We rented a four bedroom Mediterranean villa for our five day stay. It was a little bit shabby – no chrome, no stainless steel, no plastic – but an enclosed paved courtyard with trees and tables a dining room with a huge communal table and a sitting room with lumpy and friendly couches and chairs. Canet has improved the town’s 50 meter pool by adding an indoor 25 meter warm-up pool. It can be a truly international facility now. The atmosphere at the Canet meet is unlike any other meet. It has an almost Sunday picnic atmosphere. But it’s not of course. No meet with Trickett, Sullivan, Bernard, Jukic and Jones is a picnic. Andrew and Skuba swam personal bests in all their events. Jane made a sub 30 second 50 meters return to swimming after a three year retirement [Jane's note: I prefer to call that time an extended taper.]

The tour’s final stop was Monte Carlo. No place on earth could be more different from Canet. Here it is all Porsches and Ferraris and casinos. Shortly after we arrived I noticed a Ferrari stop outside our hotel. The hall porter explained that the driver was Jensen Button, the Formula One World Champion. Needless to say he drives for Ferrari. He also owns the hotel.

From way up on the coastal motorway, I never tire of the sight of this millionaire’s playground. Sitting on the hotel balcony eating lunch and gazing out at the Mediterranean, it’s hard not to be impressed, even when some swimmer five floors above hangs their suit out to dry and it begins dripping on to the table. Our guys were getting tired. They swam close to their best and we headed for home.

It’s a great trip and it works. With all the hardships involved in travel and hotels, the good ones love it and they improve. The sponsor’s trust that this would occur was well founded. The improvements they supported and we wanted were achieved. Thank you – you see, while money can’t buy swimming success, without money swimming success is very difficult.

Already the swimmers are planning Mare Nostrum 2010. It’ll be another great adventure and they will go faster.

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