By NZSwimmingFan

Note: This post was written by a guest contributor who has commented here several times, such as on Pan Pacs Preview a week ago.

Over the last couple of weeks, these under-18 versions of their senior counterparts were held in Maui and Singapore respectively - New Zealand sending small teams to both, their fortunes unfortunately mirroring those of the senior Pan Pac team – getting better, but not as quickly as the rest of the world.

Firstly, special mention must be made of Gareth Kean’s 1:57.78 200 back in Maui, currently 14th in the world and 3rd equal in the Commonwealth. Stripping away the Swimming New Zealand hype, he is a genuine contender in Delhi. What was even more impressive is that his improvement over his 1:58.5 at Pan Pacs was almost all on the 3rd 50, a 30.45 vs. a 31.05. He clearly learned from his pacing mistake in Irvine (I’m sure some clear water and racing in lane 4 helped too). Watching his race at Pan Pacs, it looks like the prime determinant of whether he only makes the finals or instead medals in Delhi and beyond will be how much he can improve on his walls – his swimming is world class, but his turns aren’t much better than solid age groupers’.

It will be a measure of his class to see how quickly he can get back into hard work, if he manages to again improve in Delhi with such a short (4 weeks) build-up, New Zealand swimming fans should be rightfully excited.

New Zealand’s other outstanding backstroke prospect, Sophia Batchelor, didn’t fare as well as Kean in Maui, finishing roughly a second off her best in all her events except the 100 free. She broke Rebecca Perrott’s long-standing record in this event and once again SNZ got overly excited, saying the record was 24 years old when it was 34 years old. They also credit Sophia’s 2:06 in the final of the 200 Free as being a PB, when she in fact swam a 2:02 in March and has swum under 2:06 numerous times since then (including a 2:03 in the heats in Maui). They also say she swam a worrying 2:34 in her 200 IM heat, when she in fact did a 2:24. SNZ screw-ups aside, I’m sure Batchelor, at just 15, will be stronger for the experience and back to her best at NZ Short Course NAGS in late September.

The other two pool swimmers in Maui, Sam Lucie-Smith and Sam Lee also had up and down meets. Lucie-Smith has steadily dropped her 200 Free time and again PB’d with a 2:02.8, which puts her in the conversation for the promising womens 4×200 free relay that is building towards London. She also raced the final of the 400 Free, but finished 2 seconds off the 4:17 she swam at the 2009 NAGS – back then it looked as if she may have been a quality 400 free prospect but she has subsequently failed to recapture that form. Butterflyer Sam Lee was also off her best, swimming slower in her 200 Fly than she did at the 2009 Junior Pan Pacs 20 months ago, and also finishing off her PB in the 100 Fly after flirting with being the first Kiwi woman under 60 seconds last year.

At the Youth Olympics in Singapore, the story was much the same. The SNZ hype machine never misses out on an opportunity to pump young male freestylers up as the second coming of Danyon Loader, and Matt Stanley was no exception. He swam a solid 3:56 in his 400 Free, but must have been a little disappointed after clocking a short course 3:48 prior to the meet. He then came 5th in the 200 in a 1:51, a time which would have placed him 6th in Maui, indicating that there were very few swimming powerhouses that sent full strength teams to Singapore. These were both good swims, but comparisons to Loader are unfair and unwarranted. Backstroker Renee Stothard was close to her best, while Chloe Francis was relatively disappointing, failing to back up a good 200 IM heat in the final. Francis also missed out in her other events, most notably in the 200 free, after putting down an awesome 2:01.2 in March she only managed a 2:03 in Singapore.

The most frustrating thing about these results is that SNZ seems to pick our national teams as if we are one of the leading swimming nations in the world. We sent 4 swimmers to Maui and 3 to Singapore – why did we split them up? We don’t have the luxury of sending a ‘development’ team to meets like these and I understand that cost of travel is a legitimate issue so why didn’t we just send everyone to one meet, even if it was the weaker Youth Olympics (on the basis of experiencing a multi-sport event.) When we do this, swimmers miss out on racing in relays, which I think are hugely important and lift the best out of many people, and being able to support swimmers in lots of races, rather than one or two a session. I also think this attitude pervades the selection criteria for these meets, I appreciate we need to send high quality teams to these events but for those swimmers on the fringes it can be the difference between quitting and continuing. A case in point of this would be Tash Hind; she had always been a solid, if unspectacular, age-grouper and was given the opportunity to race in the womens 4×200 relay at Beijing after finishing 4th in a relatively slow 2:04.8 at the Olympic trials. Since then, she’s dropped to a 1:58.8 and looks to have room for improvement.

One final note from the meet in Maui, in the mens 4×100 medley relay, which New Zealand (Kean, Simpson, Bell, Burrows) won in an incredible upset in 2009, but weren’t even able to field a team to defend the title in 2010. The USA under 18 team swam faster than our senior team did at Pan Pacs, NZ faster on 3 legs, but 1.5 sec slower on the butterfly – a massive worry for a Kiwi group that looked to be medal contenders in London.

By David

After a decade of trying, the boss of New Zealand swimming, Jan Cameron, has finally managed to guide an athlete to a medal at the Pan Pacific Games; a bronze in the Woman’s 50 backstroke, won by Emily Thomas. The medal is both a wonderful achievement and an “about time” poor reward. For Emily Thomas it is a wonderful achievement. Nothing can or should detract from the success she has earned at a world class competition. It is not easy to win a medal of any type at a Pan Pacific Games. Without any qualification at all, Thomas’s performance is a very good one.
From a national point of view however one bronze medal is scant return for a decade of spending our tax dollars. For ten years swimming has spent millions on its administration and elite program. A return at the Pan Pacific Games of one bronze medal is not sufficient. In the commercial world one financial bronze medal for ten years of effort by some fine athlete employees and millions of dollars invested would have the shareholders demanding a change of management. Swimwatch may be the only voice saying as much but believe us we’re not the only ones thinking it.

Just as distressing as the results from Irvine, California is the spin fed to the New Zealand media. It seems that if you are not performing, then you have to spin. In New Zealand, the swimming may be a bit of a struggle but the spin is first class. Here is what we mean.

After the first morning’s heats Cameron was interviewed on Radio Sport. The journalist was interested in finding out why Moss Burmester had struggled in his heat of the 200 butterfly. Cameron clearly did not want the conversation to go down that path and instead said she was more interested in the six personal best times swum that morning. There are two things disturbing about that. Firstly, it is always important to examine the reasons why something has gone wrong. Why has a good swimmer like Moss Burmester struggled at this meet? Has he been training badly; is he injured or have the individuals responsible for his career been providing him with bad advice? Cameron needed to address these questions. The Radio Sport journalist should not have been as easily put off by an administrator trying to dodge the issue. And secondly the announcement of six personal best times was classic spin. The six PBs were true enough. What Cameron omitted to tell Radio Sport’s listeners was that there had been thirteen swims that morning. Therefore the teams PB ratio was a poor 46%. Any team recording less than 50% needs to look seriously at their program. Most teams aim to be in the 70% range.

The Coach appointed by Cameron to guide this team was reported as saying that “he’s not worried about comparisons with the world’s super powers.” What sort of nonsense is that? This Australian is the recipient of the best support New Zealand has to offer and he’s not interested in how we stack up against the world’s best? Perhaps we need someone who is interested in being compared with and beating Lochte, Phelps, Schmitt, Weir and their super power mates. I’ve stayed at Arthur Lydiard’s home on forty or fifty occasions. In that time I spent hours discussing training and sport. I just wish he was still alive to confirm my guarantee that the only thing he was interested in was being compared to the world’s best.

When Jane broke her first New Zealand Age Group record, the 100IM at a World Cup in Berlin, Arthur growled on the phone, “Don’t even submit the paperwork. Teach her that National Open records are the minimum standard.” I explained this to Jane and the forms were never submitted. New Zealand records are trumpeted as huge achievements these days. I guess that’s why Arthur was Arthur and this lot aren’t. Several weeks after Jane’s 100IM, a veteran Wellington administrator, Barbara Neish, thought we had overlooked the paperwork in error and submitted the forms on our behalf. Jane got her Age Group record but fortunately not before she had learned, it’s the big ones that matter.

Another very good swim in Irvine was Tash Hind’s 1.58.80 in the 200 freestyle final. Why on earth did team management report her effort as, “she was eighth in the final but third among Commonwealth countries” In reality she was seventh in the final and fourth among Commonwealth countries. Ahead of her were two Australians (Evans and Palmer) and a Canadian (Saumur). The claim of third in the Commonwealth is also misleading because it ignores the very good British swimmers who do not compete in the Pan Pacific Games. At least one of them (Carlin) has a time faster than 1.58.80. Is all this just more spin? Tash Hind’s swim was very good but it was not third in the Commonwealth and should not have been diminished by being reported as such.

Probably the most delightful item of reporting associated with New Zealand’s participation in this Pan Pacific Games was a profile on Scott Talbot-Cameron (that’s Cameron’s son and Pan Pac’s Assistant Coach) published in the New Zealand Herald just before the team left for the United States. In the report Scott tells us that his partner uses the wife of the New Zealand’s national rugby coach as her mentor to help her through the stress of living with a swimming coach. What on earth is all that about? It’s great PR spin but not much in the way of substance. The guy is a swimming coach, not a fighter pilot or brain surgeon. He works at a swimming pool, not in Tora Bora. Before I was a swim coach I was General Manager of a fair sized meat processing plant. Even that beats the life out of coaching for job stress. It all seems to be a case of ideas way above their station.
I was surprised to read that the New Zealand team of fourteen swimmers had a support crew of nine officials. Cameron was there plus four other coaches, a team manager, a sports scientist, a bio-mechanic and a massage therapist. What on earth did they all do? A bio-mechanic fiddling with swimmers strokes at this late stage may partially explain why we ended up with one rather lonely bronze medal. God knows how John Walker managed to run under 3.50 for a mile with only Arch Jelley’s telephone help from far off New Zealand. If the sport’s scientist and bio-mechanic were collecting stroke and time data from the meet, are all the Clubs in New Zealand going to have access to the data? We should – we paid for it. The appearance though is of an organization that does all the “trendy, flash” stuff but has no idea how to win a race. Certainly nine staff for a team of fourteen is way over the top.

Regular Swimwatch readers will know of our admiration of Melissa Ingram. Two years ago we watched her travel alone to World Cup meets in Moscow, Stockholm and Berlin. Not only did she win some mightily impressive swimming races she displayed the special character that is common in the world’s best swimmers. I’ve seen the American backstrokers Beisel and Pelton swim on a number of occasions. Neither could hold a candle to the Ingram I saw in Europe and yet both the Americans beat Ingram at the Pan Pacific Games. Why was that? I think she is over-prepared; she’s done too much speed training. Someone is making the same mistake I made preparing Toni Jeffs for the Barcelona Olympics. Ingram looks the same; too thin, too tired. The world’s best backstroker is not what she was two years ago, on her own in Europe. And that’s why we only won a solitary bronze medal.

By David

The Auckland Winter Championships have come and gone. West Auckland Aquatics have doing alright; seventy four personal best swims out of one hundred and twelve starts. That’s a PB ration of 66%; not bad, but not brilliant either. After experiencing a major coaching change, it’s probably good enough to satisfy the criteria of seeing the team make some progress. And we did qualify nine swimmers for the Age Group Nationals in Christchurch later in the year. Only three so far have qualified for the Open Nationals in the holiday town of Mt. Manganui on the 12 November. They are three good swimmers and should do well in the Nationals. Their task hasn’t been made easy though by a stunning bit of programming.

New Zealand has national examinations called NCEAs that are taken by students in their third, fourth and fifth years in High School. It seems that Swimming New Zealand have programmed the Spring National Championships from the 12-14 November. The NCEA exams begin nationwide one day later on the 15 November. Not much in the way of pathway planning there. I wonder how much thought went into arriving at the worst possible conflict with every New Zealand High School student’s academic and swimming progress.

As is normal all over the world on occasions such as the Auckland Winter Championships you encounter the good, the bad and the ugly. For example, I was surprised at the number of people who swam in the preliminaries and qualified for an “A” or “B” final and decided to scratch. From thirty four events forty seven swimmers decided the heat swim was enough for them. One of the forty seven was from West Auckland Aquatics. I’m not sure what the international norm is in this case but an average of almost 1.5 swimmers scratching from each final does seem high. It suggests that too many good swimmers are treating their regional Championships as a morning training opportunity. That would not be right.

Our team was appointed to sit next to the United Swim Team coached by Jonathan Winter. I’d like to know who decides the allocation of the seating these days. When I left New Zealand West Auckland Aquatics always sat down the other end of the pool. North Shore still sits where they always have. Why don’t we? Anyway, the good part about being shifted was we were next to the United Swim Team. All weekend I was entertained by Jonathan Winter, recounting stories about what he a Mark Haumona got up to in the “old days”. For those of you who don’t know who Mark Haumona was; he swam butterfly for New Zealand and was noted as a hard case. I’m told he is a teacher these days. He’d be very good at that – the poacher turned gamekeeper. No wonder Jonathan Winter is one of New Zealand’s best coaches. His easy manner and calm disposition are in the best traditions of New Zealand’s finest coaches. Lydiard, Jelley and Laing had the same quality. Swimmers perform at their best for a coach like that. Referring to a point made on Swimwatch several articles ago; I have no idea why we import foreign coaches when New Zealand has the likes of Winter around. Hopefully one day soon that will change.

Yes, it was a fun weekend; well run and, unlike some Florida meets, spread across relatively short sessions. My daughter Jane followed our team’s results on the internet. She sent me an email towards the end of the weekend. All it said was, “Somewhere Ross is pleased.” The Ross she referred to is Ross Anderson, close personal friend and coach of West Auckland Aquatics through many of its most successful years. He was New Zealand Coach of the Year in 1987 and Head Coach at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. For three consecutive years from 1992 to 1994 the Ross Anderson led West Auckland Aquatics team won the Cain Trophy awarded to New Zealand’s top club. Ross resigned from the Club in March 1997 and died a couple of months later. But, to my mind, Ross Anderson is still part of this team. He set the standard by which our work and today’s West Auckland Aquatics club should be judged. If, as Jane says, “Somewhere Ross is pleased” then we have done well.