By David

A year ago the West Auckland Aquatics Swim Team swam in the Auckland Winter Championships. For American readers that’s a state championship and is swum here as a short course meters event. We didn’t perform all that well. Jane Ip won the team’s only medal, a bronze in the 50 meters breaststroke. We certainly needed to do better than that this year. A week ago the 2011 Auckland Winter Championships were held. How did West Auckland Aquatics get on?

Actually the week of the competition started pretty badly. The team’s only finalist in the New Zealand Summer Nationals, Jessica Marston, developed a sore shoulder. I talked it over with New Zealand’s best track coach, Arch Jelley, who said to take her out of the meet. Swimming at race speeds was just too big a risk. So while the other swimmers were given a few days rest poor old Jessica was toiling through another week of aerobic distance conditioning. A week later her shoulder is fine and Jessica has an extra hundred kilometres in her aerobic build-up account.

Over the years I’ve heard dozens of coaches proclaim that the race results of their swimmers have been especially good because their team is in “hard training”. Scott Talbot is forever using the “hard training” option. It is usually the sign of a coach who needs a pre-prepared excuse in case his charges don’t perform. Having said that, I am about to use the same “hard training” defence. West Auckland Aquatics do a pretty traditional ten week Lydiard/Jelley build-up; lots of long steady paced swimming – even the occasional 8000 meters medley and one 10,000 meter straight swim. The table below shows the distances swum by our senior swimmers through this season’s build-up. The Auckland Winter Championships were held during week nine. I think you can see that our swimmers were actually racing in the middle of “hard training”. The distances shown in the table are kilometres per week.

And so, with our excuses declared, here is how the West Auckland Aquatics swimmers listed in the table got on this year. Jessica, we have already mentioned. She laboured while the others played. This build-up has been pretty good for Jessica; averaging 85.3 kilometres through the ten weeks. She will be rewarded for that effort later in the season.

Nikki Johns is a remarkable individual. I have written about her on Swimwatch before. You may remember that in the past few months her large intestine became infected and she ended up having most of it removed. In spite of that she’s back swimming and has averaged 31 kilometres a week over the past ten weeks. In the Auckland Winters Nikki recorded a series of times close to her personal bests. After the summer she has been through it is impossible to believe that she is back swimming, let alone recording times that will see her swim in the National Winter Championships again this August.

Abigail just sneaked ahead of Jessica to record the team’s biggest build-up; averaging 85.8 kilometres. In spite of doing no speed work Abigail recorded an impressive five personal best times from five swims. Twelve seconds off her 800 freestyle, four seconds off her 400 freestyle and three seconds off her 100 breaststroke were especially memorable. All swimmers earn the progress they make; but Abigail perhaps more than most.

This weekend was Rhi’s first meet on her return to competitive swimming. In world terms the Auckland Championship is a lovely, intimate almost picnic style meet. Certainly it does not rival the Athens Olympic Games or the Barcelona World Championships where Rhi has previously mined for gold. However Rhi’s performance in Auckland rivalled her swims at those more illustrious events. She arrived in New Zealand five months ago. She was 30 kilograms overweight and couldn’t break 30 seconds for 50 meters freestyle. Last weekend she has lost the 30 kilograms and she swam 25.43, 55.50 and 2.00.99 for the 50, 100 and 200 freestyle. Only an awesome talent could pull that off. Beware America one of your best is on her way back.

Justin’s week leading up to the meet was full of drama. At the request of his parents Swimming New Zealand had suspended his membership and banned him from our club. He took his case to court and won. The news of his legal victory and friendship with Rhi circled the world. USA Today, London Metro, Sydney’s Morning Herald and Sky Sport all reported Justin’s story. I was concerned. How would all this affect his swimming? Nothing but good it seems; eight swims and seven personal bests. The best was probably a two second improvement in his 100 fly from 58.86 to 56.65. Although improving his 50 fly from 26.86 to 25.54 wasn’t too bad either. It seems the pressure of worldwide attention is not something that concerns this fine New Zealand sportsman.

Jane is fourteen and is the Club’s best breaststroke swimmer. She’s talented, she’s mature beyond her years and she does not like the long kilometres of aerobic conditioning. This build-up has been her best, averaging 38.1 kilometres per week. The distance does not seem to have hurt; twelve races for nine personal bests. My daughter Jane Copland was a pretty accomplished breaststroke swimmer, winning national open championships and setting national open and age group records. On a recent visit to New Zealand daughter Jane told me she thought Jane Ip was destined for good things in this sport. I think she might be right.

And finally there is Zane. Now he is talented. In fact, whatever the stroke, he’s bloody good at it. Unfortunately his early childhood coaches exploited his talent and stripped mined his potential. That sort of coaching is nothing short of abuse. I’ve spent a year working with him to rebuild the determination needed to succeed at sport. He has averaged 26.9 kilometres through this build-up. That needs to improve but is a huge step forward from where he was at a year ago. He swam four races at the Championships and managed one personal best time. I hope we see the best of this swimmer. It will be an impressive sight.

And was our medal count better than twelve months ago? Yep, we did improve. Our one lonely bronze turned into nine medals; three gold, three silver and three bronze. There is still a long way to go to match the deeds of the Ross Anderson led West Auckland Aquatics. But we are on our way.

By David

The Auckland Open Championships have been held this weekend. Before I left to coach in the United States this was the meet Television New Zealand used to call me about, to ask if Toni Jeffs was coming up from Wellington to compete. If she was going to swim they would send a news team out to film the event. Of course this was also in the days when Toni was sponsored by Liks Night Club and West Auckland Aquatics was stacked full of rebellious buggers like Johnny Munro, Ross Anderson (senior and junior), John Steel, Paul Kent, Nick Sanders and Craig Ford – ably supported in Wellington by the likes of Jon Winter and Mark Haumona. In those days the meet involved all of Auckland’s age group swimmers as well as the Jeffs, Bray and Steel super stars.

I have no idea who decided to change the old format. But in an understandable quest to shorten the sessions, Auckland’s age group swimmers have been given their own Championship. It means the administrators responsible for the Open Championship now have a snappier, more spectator friendly format. Their problem is the competition has lost its old personality and is still looking to find a new one. The meet has improved; the swimming is better but the personality has been sucked out of the place. That’s not surprising when the menacing presence of Cameron hovers over the scene watching for any sign of rebellion in New Zealand’s best swimmers. It’s a sad day when the loudest voice and largest personality in the pool is an American who has only been here six weeks and isn’t even swimming. New Zealand has some bloody good swimmers but who the hell are they? Even Bell went the whole meet without a beer in sight.

There is little chance of Television New Zealand being interested in the Auckland Open Championships again until the cult of personality is restored. Television loves McEnroe, Connors, Phelps, Ali and SBW. Olympic gold medals seem to have an attachment to those sorts of people as well. It has been said before on Swimwatch that Olympic sport is a game for adults; men and women who have relationships, who enjoy a drink, who stay out too late, who are human, with interesting stories of human strengths and weaknesses to tell. Cameron and Byrne don’t want that. They want obedience. Cameron wants her personality to dominate. And that’s exactly what swimming in New Zealand has got. But it’s not Cameron or Byrne that are going into battle in London; it is Ingram and Francis and Bell and Radford. They have priority. It is their turn to shine, unfettered by the Cameron storm cloud.

I noticed the other day that the very good ex-New Zealand swimmer, Helen Norfolk, has been instrumental in setting up a swimmer’s trade union, called the New Zealand Swimmer’s Association (NZSA). When she was swimming, I thought Norfolk was one of the most obedient, “yes Jan, no Jan, three bags full Jan” swimmers on the planet. Being as she was raised in Canterbury I should have known better. For what it’s worth, here at Swimwatch, we think the NZSA is the best thing that’s happened to New Zealand swimming since Danyon Loader won his two Olympic gold medals. There will be a collective voice able to strongly put the case for better conditions. Swimmers will have more power. Byrne and Cameron will not be able to practice the divide and rule speciality of bullies. I am hoping the crazy controls currently exercised by the Swimming New Zealand politburo will be relaxed. Best of all swimmers will be able to mature as athletes and as men and women. With the protections offered by the NZSA New Zealand’s best swimmers should be able to express their personalities; their celebrity will be able to shine. And Auckland’s Open Championship administrators will have a product to sell to Television New Zealand again.

Our little club had a good weekend. We won a few races and swam even more PBs. I was discussing what to write in this Swimwatch article with a couple of the team’s mothers. Ella’s Mum said, I could always mention that her twelve year old daughter had swum two personal bests. And so she did! WAQ’s four swimmers (Jess, Justin, Zane and Jane) preparing for the New Zealand Nationals in three weeks appear to be well on track to swim well. Best of all they are beginning to swim with character. In all sorts of ways the personality of the team is changing and growing. Swimming boys and girls are becoming men and women – and for a coach there is no more satisfying sight in sport. Best of all one of the most senior officials in swimming here and a person who typifies the strength and knowledge of the “amateur” base of this sport, stopped me on the pool deck this weekend to say how well he thought our team was swimming. Because he is also certainly a person who has not always agreed with this sometimes rebellious swim coach, his opinion means a lot – thank you.

I recently asked a prominent US coach a training question. The title of this post is his reply. His Dutch ancestry gave me a clue where to look for the translation. Freetranslation.com supplied the answer – “you get the best education on an old bike”. Isn’t that the truth? Our team is moving forward. In the best spirit of Ross Anderson Senior we are heading in a direction he would recognize. Hopefully one day we will have a roll call of names to match those who headed this article and headed this team when he was its coach.

By David

Whether the long term goal is to win a national title, get a university scholarship in the USA or win a major international event, every swimmer is entitled to dream big. The speed at which major goals are realized will vary from swimmer to swimmer but should never be constrained by coach, athlete or parent.

Having said that, an Olympic gold medal at 13 is probably a touch optimistic, although Amanda Beard did get close to even that lofty goal. Toni Jeffs is the fastest improver I have seen. When she came to my squad she was a consolation finalist in the New Zealand open nationals: about 10th in NZ. In just twenty-four weeks, she improved to New Zealand’s 100 and 50 freestyle champion and was placed 5th in the 100 freestyle and 4th in the 4×100 freestyle relay at the Auckland Commonwealth Games. Nichola Chellingworth had a similar stellar rise. She swam a NZ national 12 year old record in only her second ever competitive swimming race. Jane Copland qualified for the New Zealand Open Nationals when she was twelve years old. She made a top eight World Cup final in Hong Kong at 13.

These are unusual examples. But they do highlight the importance of not putting time limits on achieving goals. All three swimmers were encouraged to dream big, a quality that contributed hugely to their early success. A more normal story however is a swimmer I coached in the United States who had swum at a modest level for years when he came to my team. He took a further two years to swim in a USA national championship final. His progress in the first six months was modest indeed and he was a very talented man. Another talented swimmer I coached in Florida swam with me for eighteen months before she began to make progress. She now swims well in the United States National Championships and has a partial athletic scholarship to a good American University.

These examples got me thinking about the factors that influence the speed of a swimmer’s improvement. Talent is a factor but not an important one. Probably the biggest contributing difference between those that took time and the three rapid improvers is the history of their early careers. When the slower improvers came to my program they were damaged goods. Their careers needed to go through a rehabilitation period before they could progress again. For example one of the Florida swimmers was ranked 4th in the USA at twelve and had been exploited for years by a poor coach and an ambitious mother. The three rapid improvers came to my program with no such problems. Toni had been coached by her father who was a very good coach. Probably his only “crime” was not pushing his daughter hard enough. He certainly laid the foundation from which she could progress quickly to international success. The other two had never swum competitively before their early successes.

A second important factor is the emphasis a Lydiard program puts on the mileage swum in the buildup. Swimmers simply cannot expect the best racing results if their training buildup mileage is low. Some programmes try and compensate for lost mileage by increasing the severity of the anaerobic and speed training. That seldom works and is certainly not good for the athlete. For senior squad swimmers to progress to the sort of long term goals mentioned above requires 70 to 100 kilometers a week in the buildup. A characteristic common to the rapid improvers is that all three did many 100 kilometer weeks. The two slower improvers from Florida also swam similar distances. One of them had a best 10 week total of 950 kilometers. Swimmers who average 40 kilometers a week are just not providing themselves with a sufficient base to build a successful career. When Alison Wright was one of the world’s best middle distance runners she ran for a four year period and missed just three training sessions. I know swimmers who miss that number and more every week. Alison’s best ten week mileage was 1200 miles (1920 kilometers). Success is seldom by chance.

And finally take into account how well a swimmer is actually improving. A very good figure produced by the American Swim Coaches Association is their 3% annual rate of improvement target. If swimmers want to be international athletes or achieve one of the long term goals mentioned earlier in this article they should aim for an average improvement of 3% per annum. Duncan Laing told me Danyon Loader averaged 3%. Jane Copland averaged 2.8%. Dream big but keep in mind this American figure. When it comes to swimming they know what they are talking about.

Remember though that not every season will be an improvement over the previous season. When a pause occurs there is no reason for concern. Occasionally swimmers need time to consolidate. Two or three seasons of good progress go by and for no obvious reason there is a season where the swimmer seems to be drawing breath, gathering reserves and getting ready to go again. Certainly the careers of Toni, Nichola and Jane seemed to work that way. Improvement was not a series of neat 3.0% annual steps to national swimming honors. When a pause does occur, be patient. Take the long-term view. Because the method of training is sound, move on and it will come right.

To illustrate the point, set out below is a table showing the percentage annual improvement in competition times for an international swimmer I coached from the age of 12 to 18. The data shows that after two early years of big improvements this swimmer went through a four year period of good improvements and plateaus; a trend quite common in developing swimmers.

So there it is; dream big and urgently but in evaluating your individual circumstances take into account your history; take into account how well you have done in the buildups; take into account how close you are to the 3% per annum rate of improvement. Only then will you have a balanced view of your current progress.

By David

Each week Swimwatch is read in about 35 countries. I imagine readers in most of them will have heard about the 7.1 Richter scale earthquake that recently rocked the New Zealand city of Christchurch. Unbelievably no one was killed, but the Christchurch community was a mess. Dozens of buildings were condemned, water and electricity supplies were spasmodic and events like the New Zealand Short Course Junior Swimming Championships had to be shifted. The Championships were originally scheduled for Christchurch from the 26th to 30th September. With the pool short of water and the pool buildings in need of repair, Swimming New Zealand had no option but to cancel the event or shift it to another location.

Swimming New Zealand handled a difficult problem well. In spite of the limited time available they consulted the swimming community widely and decided to move the Championships to New Zealand’s capital city, Wellington. Our Club has seven swimmers qualified to swim in the Championships but we won’t be going. I’ve never been a great fan of age group nationals. The Americans do well to avoid the national age group events, so popular in New Zealand, Australia and, come to think of it, most of the rest of the world. In my experience the New Zealand version is an awful event.

They are the scene of too much hurt. At the beginning of the week keen, enthusiastic, happy young people arrive full of anticipation, coached and honed to a competitive edge. Parents dash around checking that their charge’s start list seed times have been properly entered and locating the town’s best source of pasta. Coaches patrol the pre-meet practice with all the intensity of an Olympic warm up. International swim meet promoters would die to be able to create the nervous energy present at the beginning of your average New Zealand age group championship.

By the end of the first morning’s heats you can detect the mood beginning to change. The problem is thirty swimmers enter an event, eight make a final, three get medals and one wins. Potentially there are twenty nine disappointed swimmers and fifty eight disappointed parents who can’t wait to get back to the motel for their treble gin and tonic to ease the pain. It’s a disappointment born out of expectations set far too high.

As each day goes by the mood darkens and deepens. The transformation is stunning. The tremendous high of the first morning slumps during the day; is momentarily revived at the beginning of day two, only to slump even further. By day four all I want to do is get the hell out of there and make sure no swimmer of mine ever goes back. For someone whose heart is in seeing athletes soar, the New Zealand Age Group and Junior Championships are not something I care to watch.

There was a good article on the US Junior Nationals in an old issue of the USA Swimming magazine “Splash”. In it USA Swimming demonstrates an acute awareness that their event needs to avoid many of the problems characteristic of the New Zealand version. They say:

“Along the way, however, many coaches and others within USA Swimming saw a disturbing trend. Instead of a whistle stop on the way to Senior National and international competition the Junior Nationals were embedding themselves as a destination.”

The Americans have done some good things to avoid the problems inherent in New Zealand’s Age Group and Junior Championships to ensure their meet is a whistle stop and not a destination. First of all the American event is an “open” junior event; not an age group championship. Everyone up to a relatively old 18 can swim in their Junior Nationals. There are no single year age group categories. The protection of individual age categories used in New Zealand encourages young swimmers to compete in a false reality; promoting the event as a winning destination rather than a stepping stone to senior swimming. The national body here is about to compound that problem by “nationalising” championships for 10, 11 and 12 year old children. The false reality that is characteristic of New Zealand age group swimming will now start even younger. It is almost impossible to imagine any winning 10 year old ever making it past the seven further national age group hurdles to finally emerge as a winning senior international athlete. A quick look through the year 2000 12 years and under “national” results illustrates the point. Not one winner has made it through to the 2010 Pan Pacs team. The best I could see was Lauren Boyle who was 8th equal in the 12 year old girls 100 freestyle.

Secondly, the American junior qualifying standards are really tough. They reflect their “older” cut off age. An athlete has to be quick just to make the cut. There’s a fair chance swimmers that fast will have the experience and maturity to handle the occasion. A young Lauren Boyle would have to wait a few years before she could even compete in the American National Junior Championships. Her 1.07 in 2000 would have had to become 58.59 to even qualify for the American junior event. In Boyle’s case, she was tough enough to make it through the New Zealand system and prosper; a quality she subsequently confirmed by competing successfully in the world’s toughest swimming environment: the NCAAs.

Thirdly, names included on the US junior meet’s list of alumni suggest their “Juniors” are a successful transition between local and international competition. Unlike the New Zealand results “Splash” tells me Gary Hall, Aaron Peirsol, Ian Crocker and Michael Phelps swam here. That’s a pretty impressive list. Their “Junior National Championship” is working all right.