By David

Occasionally Swimwatch receive suggestions on the content of its articles. Recently a good friend suggested Swimwatch should highlight the perilous state of New Zealand’s country schools. The suggestion had merit. Rural schools all over New Zealand are being closed. Not so very long ago the children of farming families could ride a horse or walk to their local rural school. Now they spend an hour or more in dusty school buses travelling to schools in regional towns. I went to one of the rural schools. It had three rooms, three teachers, a dental clinic, a shower block, an orchard, a vegetable garden, a tennis court and a rugby field. The education must have been fine. Three of my Te Reinga School mates ended up graduating from University with me. Fortunately Te Reinga is one of the surviving rural schools. Only two of the class rooms are in current use, but a filtered pool has replaced the Hangiroa River as the location of the school’s swim lessons. I decided the continuing health of my old school meant it was best to avoid using Swimwatch to discuss the plight of other, less fortunate, schools.

A second email this week suggested Swimwatch should tell the story of Bethany Hamilton. Now that’s a story well worth telling. She’s a Hawaiian born surfer who ran afoul of a 14 foot tiger shark while surfing at Tunnels Beach, Kauai. The shark took off her arm. Bethany recovered and is back surfing and winning some pretty big competitions. I recommend having a look at the u-tube clips of her performances. She’s bloody amazing. She says holding her balance with one arm is not a problem. It did take her two or three shots to get the hang of standing up again. The surfing world has taken her to its heart. You can tell that by the way their magazines refer to her as “the one arm surfer chick” or the “blond and tanned hottie, decked out in a yellow bikini and toting her surfboard”. On the world’s beaches such sexist praise is reserved for only the most respected subjects. Next time you don’t feel like going to your local heated pool for practice because you’ve got a cold or hurt a bit from weights, spare a thought for Bethany and get yourself down to the pool.

And so, instead of a social commentary on New Zealand’s education woes or a story of huge personal courage, I have chosen to discuss the ultimate rich man’s self-indulgence; America’s Cup yachting. The most recent 2010 challenge is even more egotistical than normal. Instead of the customary round of Louis Vuitton races to find a finalist to sail against Alinghi, this year it’s just Team USA and Alinghi playing with each other. Instead of the traditional 12 meter single hull race boats, this year the competition is between two space age multi-hull behemoths. Each boat is 90 feet long and 90 feet wide. Their masts rise 180 feet above the deck. That’s about 50 feet higher than the tallest mast on the 920 ton Cutty Sark. Instead of a best of five final, this year it’s the best of three.

Some things have stayed the same; some things about the America’s Cup never change. The competitors appear to be incapable of agreeing on anything important about their event. As usual the New York Supreme Court has had to decide on the rules and dates of the 2010 competition. Team USA’s fixed wing sail still hasn’t been approved and will clearly be the subject of litigation long after this year’s three races have been sailed. Of great pride to the small nation I call home is the number of New Zealanders in the two teams. Both team captains, Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth, are New Zealanders. I met Coutts at a New Zealand Sportsman of the Year dinner a few years ago. He seemed extraordinarily quiet. Mind you he didn’t need to say much. His sporting feats say it all really; Olympic Champion, America’s Cup Champion, World Champion and Admirals Cup Champion. In the world of sailing there is not much left for Russell Coutts to win.

Alinghi has five other sailors from New Zealand in their crew. Team USA has nine New Zealanders working to get the Cup back to America. They’re all tough buggers. Men like Dean Phipps, Andrew Taylor, Ross Halcrow and Murray Jones have been winning America’s Cup races for the last fifteen years. I’d trust them anywhere. They are proud athletes, caste in the mold of Hillary, Walker, Meads and Sutcliff. You want someone to win a race for you? These guys know how to do that. The whole event is close to being a race to decide whether my team of New Zealanders can beat your team of New Zealanders.

All this begins with the first match on 8 February 2010. Historically the 8 February has already seen some fine aquatic moments. In 1983 Eric Peters set a sailboat record of 46 days for crossing the Atlantic and in 1985 Michael Gross swam a world record of 7:38.75 for the 800 meters. Wherever New Zealanders are competing on that day; whatever event is involved, Swimwatch wish them well. A just and fair conclusion: one that avoids a trip to the State Supreme Court in search of justice.

By David

Snap is not a particularly impressive word. It’s too short and clipped to mean anything important. Words like parliament, serendipity and monarchy are impressive words. That’s why the Queen is a monarch and not a snap. For me however snap is personally significant. Its meaning was reconfirmed this week when I noticed an interesting article on a New Zealand news website (infonews.co.nz) describing what it called “possibly the biggest art event ever to be held in Italy”. It interested me because the event was being held in Cassino, Italy on May 15-29 to commemorate New Zealand’s involvement in the Battle of Monte Cassino 66 years ago.

It went on to say that “Kiwi artists who have a connection with soldiers who fought in Cassino will be first invited to take part. The dates mark the liberation of towns in the area during World War 2 and are Cassino’s “busy time” of the year with veterans groups, commemoration services and unveiling of new memorials.”

It would be stretching the truth to say I was a “Kiwi artist”. The truth is I was excused art at Wairoa High School in favor of going to the gym to do weights. I thought my pictures of a dagger with a snake twisted around the blade were not too bad. I drew pretty good trees as well. I don’t know how many trees they’ve got at Monte Cassino but I’m sure I could do a fair job of putting their image on paper. Probably not good enough to merit an invitation to the Monte Cassino art show though. However if my pictorial skills aren’t up to standard; does writing count as art? I’m not the best writer in the world. There are dozens of writers that drive me mad with their easy word skills. Roger Robinson’s writing is a rare example of classic prose. Jane is better than average too. Most Swimwatch readers will have picked that up already. Quite often I try and copy her sentence construction, grammar and vocabulary skills. Roger and Jane would certainly count as “artists”. But, for the purposes of this article, I’m going to assume I’d make an invitation to the final, albeit in lane eight.

You will notice that the other criterion to join the exhibition is to “have a connection with soldiers who fought in Cassino”. Here, I am on firm ground. My Dad was at Monte Cassino in a tank. Actually he wasn’t in a tank for very long. A German shell shot up his vehicle shortly after he arrived there. In a book called “Albanete – lost opportunity at Cassino” my Dad describes his exit from the war.

“It was while looking at the possible route that we were hit. Regaining consciousness I saw that my arm was bleeding heavily and must have a tourniquet quickly. I looked up to see Joe Costello gazing through the turret at me. How he wasn’t hit is a mystery. Steve was slumped over his 75mm, bleeding badly from his back and head. Tom Middleton was lying on the floor, having fallen off his seat by the wireless. With difficulty I managed to traverse the turret by hand to enable Jack to scramble through to apply the tourniquet.

This applied I told Jack to try the motors. It was with a prayer on our lips he pressed the starter. The left engine roared into life to be followed by the right immediately afterwards. With his head out of the driver’s hatch, the better to see and get maximum speed Jack drove out through our own tanks, which were still pounding away at the enemy, to the forward Casualty Station.”

Repairing the damage cost my father his right arm and eye.

Forty five years later a lot had happened. My parents had married in a pretty elaborate ceremony in New Zealand’s First Church. I was born and my parents had divorced. My mother remarried and I lost contact with my father. He did pay for me to spend my senior year at high school in Thorp, Wisconsin and to attend New Zealand’s Outward Bound School. When Jane was twelve our swim team decided to have a summer training camp in Blenheim. My father lived there; it was time to re-establish contact. It was time for him to meet his granddaughter.

Just before we left for the camp I had an accident with a knife and cut two of the fingers on my right hand. It wasn’t all that bad but did merit eight or nine stitches and an impressively large bandage. Two days later we arrived in Blenheim. A barbeque had been arranged at my Dad’s home with his second wife, my half brother and sister and their families, all of whom I had never met. Jane seemed fine but I was pretty nervous as I walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

My Dad opened the door and paused for a moment studying the oversized bandage on my right hand. Ever so slowly he extended his only arm, his left arm to my left arm, gripped it firmly and said, “Snap”.

By David

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with “Google Analytics”, its near cousin “StatCounter”, or any other web stats / analytics package. I’d never heard of them until Jane visited Florida in September. However the void in my computer knowledge was not particularly surprising. A few years ago when we were setting up Swimwatch, Edward Yardley, the technical brains behind the venture, nearly wet his new corduroys when I called Google “Goggle”. For a swim coach I thought it was a perfectly understandable mistake. With his degree in computer science, Edward thought I’d helped Noah build the ark.

These statistics and analytics programmes tell you all about the visits to your website each day – how many, where from, how often and what they put into their computer to end up at Swimwatch. I have say, it is bloody amazing what some people ask Google to find. I mean most visitors are sensible and stick to “Swimwatch” or “swimming news”. You probably don’t know that Swimwatch ranks on page one of Google for “swimming news”. How’s that for SEO status, right up there with the BBC, ESPN and the New York Times. And if you don’t know what SEO means, you were probably helping Noah as well.

However there are some strange buggers out there who Google all sorts of stuff. Someone wanting “Ian Thorpe naked” arrived at Swimwatch the other day. They weren’t looking for our story on Thorpe’s swimming feats. Instead they were after a site that boasted a picture of Thorpe’s head on the unclothed torso of Mr. Puny America.

It is a mystery what anyone finds on Swimwatch to justify looking for “sexy swimmers team girls pictures” or “uploaded images female swimmer” or “the seven hottest female swimmers of all time“ or even “naughty Indiana girl pictures”. Those four occur quite often from all over the world. The four most recent inquiries using those referrals came from the United States, or to be more precise Cambridge, Massachusetts, Westport, Indiana, Union, New Jersey and San Diego, California. Our reader in San Diego must have found what he was after. He spent a constructive 21min and 49sec reading two of Jane’s posts. Sadly he appears to have had little interest in my literary efforts. I do not want to give the impression that the United States has a monopoly on strange Swimwatch searches. Just today someone from Lane Cove in New South Wales, Australia felt the need to find out about “swimmer red Speedo hard photo”. I doubt there is anything on Swimwatch that would satisfy this Australian fantasy.

Some of our swimmers get more than their fair share of attention. Rhi Jeffrey and Jane Copland are the most popular. Both have personalities well suited to managing their internet attention. In fact their popularity on a swimming website, well after both of them have retired, speaks volumes for their larger than life personalities. While searches for Rhi and Jane may be understandable and even normal, there are some strange ones as well. For about a week recently our best female swimmer was Googled every day by someone in Maryland. The swimmer has never been to Maryland, doesn’t know anyone in Maryland, but clearly has a determined admirer up there somewhere.

There is one interesting national characteristic. Google searches for “coach yelling at athlete” almost always come from the United Kingdom. There is obviously a whole lot more distress about this subject in the UK than anywhere else. The Brits clearly have a thing about being yelled at by swimming coaches. Americans, who revere their swim coaches, initiate very few searches on the subject. It seems that the most concern in the UK is centered in the south. For example, today’s inquiries came from Bristol, Coulsdon in Surrey and Martock in Somerset. Parents and swimmers north of Manchester and in Scotland are not nearly as concerned about a few poolside verbals.

I was delighted to see that a Google inquiry for “Ohura Beacon Wanganui New Zealand” was directed straight to Swimwatch. The Ohura Beacon is a flight navigation beacon on the west of New Zealand’s North Island. It played an important part in my life. Twenty six years ago, at 9000 feet almost directly above the beacon the engine of my Piper Arrow burst an oil pipe and stopped. A little south of Ohura I found a friendly paddock and managed one of my better landings. I wrote about the incident in a Swimwatch story. It looks like Google enjoyed the story and are now directing all aviation inquires about the beacon to our blog. I wonder how many Air New Zealand captains have discovered an Arrow’s forced landing instead of the technical details of the Ohura Beacon.

Other fun searches that have ended up at Swimwatch include “empty pool” from someone who lives in Gin Gin, Queensland, Australia: a strange request from a strange town. A search from New Delhi, India asked “is it possible to swim in New Zealand in May?” Someone from San Jose, California wanted the opinion of Swimwatch on “cotton chicken candy nuggets”. None of these are as odd as the reader in Valdosta, Georgia in the United States who wanted our opinion on the “monte food mart in Wellington New Zealand”. It would not be fair for us to comment. We left New Zealand before Del Monte arrived. I have relations however who tell me the stores aren’t too bad: where I come from that’s pretty high praise.

It is off the subject but you may be interested to know that in the past four days Swimwatch has received 500 visits from 40 different countries. That number, spread around the world is bound to result in readers with all sorts of emotions and motives. I even heard of a reader last week who said we had insulted some of her friends. Of Course that’s not true: just Google it – “insulted my friends” – see, I told you, no mention of Swimwatch.

By David

I got three emails today, one from Singapore, another from Monte Carlo and the third from a local hospital here in Delray Beach. The one from Singapore was from Clive Rushton. He has just resigned as New Zealand’s High Performance Director or some similar title. He’s taken up the position of Head Coach at the exclusive and successful Singapore Sports School. When I was leaving New Zealand to coach in the US Virgin Islands Clive called to wish me well. He concluded our conversation with a never to be forgotten quote, “Coaching” he said, “is always best done under a palm tree.” He has, at last, followed his own advice. New Zealand swimming is a vastly better place for the years Clive spent there. I can’t remember the exact details, but at one Junior World Championships while he was in charge, New Zealand actually lead the boy’s point’s competition.

I coached three swimmers who represented New Zealand during Clive’s years there – Toni Jeffs, Nichola Chellingworth and Jane Copland. His contribution to their careers was always positive and fair. You can usually tell more about a person’s character when things go wrong. When Jane swam in the Pan Pacific Games in Yokohama one or two New Zealand swimmers took their last night celebrations a little too far. Nothing on a Tiger Woods scale; just a few not so delicate moments over various Japanese toilets. I know of many an official who would make a mountain out of such indiscretions. Clive chose to write to all the team and simply said, “I know what went on. I will not put up with it. Don’t do it again or the wrath of God will be inadequate to explain the consequences”. I thought it was brilliant. Any swimmer who did not understand the fairness of this last warning deserved more than the wrath of God.

On the same trip Jane was not coming back to New Zealand. After the meet she was heading off to the USA to begin her University education. Many a coach would have required her to return to New Zealand with the team before flying to the USA. Clive recognized it was much cheaper to fly from Japan to America and that’s what he arranged. It’s that sort of common sense that makes for good coaching and good administration.

I’m not at all sure that Swimming New Zealand always appreciated the value of their High Performance Director. Achieving anything in an environment sated with regional politics must have required the skills of a Clinton or Blair. The fact Clive got so much done is exceptional. He once came to dinner at our place. It was a most enjoyable evening, good wine, good food and good debate over things swimming. I’ve had similar evenings with Arthur Lydiard, Lincoln Hurring, Ross Anderson, Arch Jelley, Duncan Lang and a few others. In all cases I’ve left knowing more and feeling better for the contact. Good luck in Singapore Clive and thank you for what you did for swimming in New Zealand. An endorsement from Swimwatch may be the last thing you want. Bad luck, on this occasion you’ve got it anyway.

The second email was from the Mare Nostrum organizer in Monte Carlo. The subject was just to let everyone know they have changed their email address. Last year our Club had four swimmers in the competition. Since then some pretty negative changes have resulted in the team only having one swimmer qualified for the 2010 series and she wasn’t even there in 2009. Her name is Nicole and she joined the team to swim in the masters program. She has a doctorate in physical therapy and doesn’t have all that much time to practice. She can swim though. After two weeks training and in her first competition she swam 50 meters in 28 and 100 meters in 1.04. It never ceases to amaze me how a good swimmer leaves and is always replaced by another. Certainly that’s what’s happened on this occasion. I’m going to try and talk Jane into swimming at Mare Nostrum with Nicole. We will go to Font Romeau for a week’s training again and then drive to Monte Carlo, Barceloma and Canet. It will be good to be back. It is a good series and with these two sane and sensible athletes should be a heap of fun.

The third email was from a swim team parent. You may remember the story we wrote about him. He’s the parent who used to be a leading Fords model. He is in hospital with a collapsed lung and one or two other complications that fortunately seem to be coming right. He’s been in an isolation ward and the ICU for two weeks now but appears to be on the mend. He is hoping to be on his way home in a couple of days.

I’ve called in to see him three times. I was interested to visit an American hospital; the pride of capitalist medicine. From all I could see the facilities were good but no better than New Zealand’s socialist Hawkes Bay hospital where I spent three weeks once while they got my blood pressure under control. The capitalist $5000 a day hospital was clean but no cleaner than the Hastings free version. I am not qualified to comment on the standard of care but the profit motive version here appears to have done a good job of fixing Martin’s problems but no better than Hawkes Bay hospital did fixing my blood pressure problem.

But today I found a difference. Martins “dinner” arrived while I was there tonight. For $5000 a day he got a pathetic, limp hamburger, a small salad that had seen better days and a couple of very small cookies. It was awful. A very small portion of the hospital’s capitalist income had been spent preparing this culinary masterpiece. The worst hamburger joint in the country can do better than this. A potato top pie bought in a New Zealand gas station is a delight in comparison. The food I got in Hastings hospital was a million times better – no contest. The socialist’s food is not only edible, but when I was there I looked forward to its arrival. So if you are thinking of getting sick anytime soon head to the socialist system in New Zealand; at least the foods worth eating. If President Obama’s public option results in a better hospital food service, I’m all for it.

By David

Thanks to swimming, I’ve met some strange buggers. There may be a few poor souls who do not appreciate the full measure of being a “strange bugger”. I feel for your burden. Clearly “no child left behind” has failed to provide you with an important life skill. Not being able to determine who in this world is a strange bugger could cost you dearly one day. Let me take a minute to explain something you should already know.

Where I come from, a “strange bugger” is a gentle derogatory term used to describe someone who’s a bit odd; an individual with few social skills; someone you’d avoid having lunch with between preliminaries and finals. There are a few swim coaches I know who are strange buggers. One of them was a New Zealand Special Olympics National Coach. He always seemed angry about something. He was one of those unfortunate souls who got far too nervous for his own athletes, developing a predilection towards beating himself on the bum with a rolled up meet programme while his swimmers were competing. Two hundred pounds lighter, on a horse in the Melbourne Cup, his behaviour would be entirely appropriate. But as a coach at a swim meet, it comfortable qualified him as a strange bugger.

One of the guys Swimming New Zealand had as their CEO was a strange bugger. He was a short fellow who displayed all the unfortunate characteristics commonly attributed to those physically challenged in the height department. I had a couple of run-ins with him. Most memorable was the occasion he threatened to have Toni Jeffs and I banned for bringing the sport into disrepute when Toni accepted sponsorship from Brian le Gross, the owner of Wellington’s Liks strip club. Brian now owns New Zealand’s largest strip club, The White House, in Auckland. Their VIP lounge features dark blue Oval Office carpet, a US Presidential Seal and is called Monica’s.

Swimming New Zealand took an extremely dim view of the Liks’ sponsorship. Their strange bugger called me and recited a list well worn clichés: “family sport” and “disrepute” featured prominently. I was summoned to a meeting with Swimming New Zealand’s Board the following morning. Things were looking pretty black until I explained to the meeting that the idea of approaching Brian for financial help came from an advertisement promoting Liks that I’d seen on the back page of Swimming New Zealand’s monthly magazine. The strange bugger had accepted Brian’s money before Toni. She just got more. The charge of disrepute was dropped.

One of Swimming New Zealand’s long time National Coaches was a strange bugger. He ripped into Jane in a Sydney hotel once; told her she was not good enough to be swimming in World Cup events and should go home. A week later at a World Cup meet in Berlin she broke the 15 year age group national record for 100IM. Two years later, he had to present her with the medal for winning the NZ Open women’s 100 Breaststroke title. The same guy may actually qualify for the superlative, “bloody strange bugger”. Toni told me he asked her and several other national team members to sit in a circle and hold on to a broom handle he held in the centre. They should then close their eyes and think about their race because, he said, “Out of touching comes strength.” Now that’s a bloody strange bugger, if you ask me.

The current New Zealand National Coach is a strange bugger as well. In a country too small for such a rule she imposed a FINA 900 point cut off standard for swimmers wanting to qualify for this year’s World Championships. The qualifying time had to be swum in the final of the New Zealand Swimming Championships being held this past weekend. Melissa Ingram just missed the 900 point time in her event. Now, I must tell you, I sat through all last year’s World Cup meets in Europe and watched Melissa Ingram take on and beat most of the world’s best swimmers. She made me proud to be a New Zealander. There she was, no manager, no coach, no massage therapist in tow, on her own, taking on the world and winning. In everything she did, she upheld the best traditions of Snell, Loader, Walker, Halberg, Quax and Dixon. She’d be one of the first I’d have on my team. Apparently New Zealand is so overwhelmed with talent just now they’re leaving her at home. Let’s wait until Rome. We may have another National Coach candidate for title of “bloody strange bugger”.

Strange buggers are not the sole property of New Zealand. The US has its share. The former President of Florida Gold Coast Swimming sent me a letter complaining about my behaviour – I think I called a spade a bloody shovel. At the same time he was apparently misbehaving with an underaged girl and emailing pornographic pictures of young boys to his mates. He’s a real bad strange bugger. The thing I never understood about all that was one of my swimmers told me about the girl a few months after I arrived in Florida. How on earth did the people who elected this strange bugger President not know about it? I guess those closest to the problem often miss the obvious.

Next week I was thinking of writing a piece on another group of swimming people; those who qualify for the superlative, “bloody dag”. This is a very different group from strange buggers. I hate to have to explain what a dag actually is, and it is surely a reflection of what strange places Australian and New Zealand are that only the very best and most respected of people qualify for that honorific.