Teach Yourself to Lose

By David

Barely a day goes by that Swimming New Zealand doesn’t take an action or issue an edict that fills me with disgust. I would have hoped that the involvement of Alison Fitch and Helen Norfolk in High Performance Governance might be the beginning of good things to come. Sadly though, Swimming New Zealand is getting worse. The presence of Norfolk and Fitch is providing cover for the Coulter gang. Byrne, Coulter, Cameron and Butler know that the membership of Swimming New Zealand respects these two ex-international swimmers. They know that New Zealand will cut the organization some slack while these two are involved. The Coulter gang also knows that these two are unlikely to have the experience or character or guile to identify, understand and battle the most dishonest administrators, I believe, I have ever encountered. Unwittingly Fitch and Norfolk have become facilitators for a bunch of crooks. Because of their presence the organization, they wanted to reform, is getting worse.

Last week Swimwatch reported on the effort being made by Swimming New Zealand to slip Jan Cameron onto an airplane bound for Shanghai. Cameron was about to skip the country on the taxpayer’s dollar. Fitch and Norfolk’s High Performance Governance Committee signed off on $3500 of travel costs for the woman that 80% of the people they represent have told us they never want to see anywhere near an international swimming competition ever again. Accepting a position on the High Performance Governance Committee meant being prepared to make tough decisions. We were let down on this occasion.

And this week the Coulter gang and the High Performance Governance Committee came up with a second bizarre decision. For some reason best known to Jan Cameron, the High Performance Centre has always wanted to send National entries for High Performance swimmers directly into Swimming New Zealand. Cameron, it seems, does not want to comply with Swimming New Zealand’s Regulations. The rest of us have to send our entries through our Regional office. Here is what the Regulation says, “Regions must submit entries for SNZ members. No club entries are permitted.”

That seems pretty simple but apparently it is far to menial for Jan Cameron’s chosen few. Along with her special uniforms and privileged seating Cameron continues her quest to divide and separate. Her latest effort at division was circulated this week. Now she wants to formalize a separate entry procedure for Millennium swimmers. Here is an edited version of the Swimming New Zealand email.

The Swimming New Zealand events team has been in discussions with the events advisory committee and SNZs high performance centre regarding the most convenient way for entries from HPC-based swimmers to be forwarded to Swimming New Zealand. The consensus was for all HPC-based swimmers’ entry forms for national competitions to be submitted to SNZ by the SNZ HPC.

All sorts of things are wrong with the email.

  1. Never, ever believe a thing Ross Butler tells you. At our meeting in Auckland a couple of weeks ago he assured me face to face that there was one standard in Swimming New Zealand. He was going to make sure Swimming New Zealand was “one team”. Last week he published the same message on Swimming New Zealand’s website. And this week he approved a privileged entry procedure for fourteen swimmers based on Auckland’s North Shore. While Butler and Cameron and Coulter are in charge there is no chance of SNZ being one team. Come to think of it, with values like they have I can’t imagine wanting to be on a team that has them as members.
  2. Why weren’t the Regions included in the discussions that led to this decision? Until now National entries have been processed through the Regions. This is evidentially going to change. Wouldn’t it have been proper and polite to involve the Regions in a decision that takes away a function they have always performed. Mind you, it is all fairly typical of the arrogance that Coulter has shown toward the Regions. I am certain he will pay for that one day soon.
  3. As for Fitch and Norfolk – their careers were blighted by the very disease they are transmitting to a new generation. I always thought and I still think that Norfolk could have won an Olympic 400 metre medley championship. But she was badly advised. She swam through an era characterised by all sorts of bad decisions. You would think that experience would have alerted her to decisions that were bad for a new generation of swimmers. It seems not. This is a bad decision and her stamp is all over it.
  4. Compare the principle behind Swimming New Zealand’s email to the decision taken by Arthur Lydiard when he was coaching the world’s best middle distance runners. He refused to let his runners apply for an Auckland record. A national record was the minimum standard. He did this to keep their feet on the ground; to make them work harder for a higher standard. Jan Cameron does not understand that principle. She wants Bell and company to be treated like Gods before they have won anything. No one deserves that. It is a terrible and abusive way to treat anyone. There is no need for them to win international swimming races. They have all the benefits already.
  5. The proposed change involves altering Swimming New Zealand’s regulations. Surely this must be more complicated than Kent Stead or Jan Cameron just saying, “Please note that this change will be reflected in the SNZ Regulations.” Isn’t there some procedure required, some approval to be obtained before Cameron can indulge in another small piece of empire building? A “law unto themselves” appears to be a phrase invented just with Swimming New Zealand in mind.

By itself this decision may seem like a small issue. What it represents though is huge. It separates and divides. It reinforces an environment of privilege on one hand and an underclass of serfdom on the other – them and us, fast and slow, good and don’t matter. Its effect on the privileged is just as bad. Ideas above your station are the kiss of death for an international athlete. Just ask Helen Norfolk and Alison Fitch.

  • Just one further thought on this subject. Perhaps Jeremy in Southland should get to enter his swimmers directly after all his IM swimmer is better than anything Jan has got. Oh and Gary too should enter Garath directly. And come to think of it here at WAQ we don’t want to go through the Auckland office anymore. After all our entries include an Olympic Gold Medalist. Of course we should go direct.

    And so swimming NZ do you see how stupid it all becomes. It is elitist without performance. That’s usually called arogance.

  • Rhi Jeffrey

    Seriously, what is your country’s problem? Do you think people like Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte ask to send their entries in to meets differently? F*ck NO! Do you think Michael and Ryan sit on a raised platform at national meets? F*ck NO! Do you think that’s a big reason why no one in the world (and especially here in New Zealand) can beat them? F*ck YA! They have their feet on the ground. This disgusts me. Jan Cameron, you need to get your fat ass off your high horse and realize that your swimmers are no different from any of the others here in New Zealand. They haven’t even won international medals. Isn’t that supposed to be your job? Real good one. This is why the US is the best (next to AUS) swimming country in the world. We don’t separate our “greats” from the “average”. We let them all do the same thing in hopes the “greats” will make the “averages” better and it damn well does. Jan, maybe if you didn’t have this bullsh*t elitist attitude more people would respect you. Maybe you should be more worried about the fact that your “elite” swimmers wouldn’t even make it to a B final in my country. Maybe you should be more concerned with the fact that you need to start winning international medals to even be considered “good” at what you are doing. You are a disgrace to swimming and I can’t believe you are still around. SNZ needs to be gutted and rebuilt from the ground up. You guys will get nowhere with the leaders you now have in place.

  • David

    I’m just reading Michael Phelps book “No Limits”. I wonder what Cameron would make of this paragraph –

    “In Baltimore I never had a lane to swim in by myself. I swam four or five to a lane, like everyone else. No special treatment, not after the 2000 Olympics, nothing.”

    Now, Cameron do you see why your special entry demands are wrong. That’s two Olympic Gold Medalists that have told you.