By David

That’s right. The Miskimmin 2012 coup d’état at Swimming New Zealand saw the introduction of several novel innovations; the autocratic form of government favoured by Sport New Zealand replaced a century of Regional democracy, a management team of foreign imports assumed power and money became no problem at all.

Miskimmin invested a huge amount of personal capital to acquire control of swimming. The sport had to be successful. If it wasn’t Miskimmin would look stupid. Swimming was his baby. Success or failure was down to him alone. And so, what did he do? He did what he does best. He threw money at the problem. Sports that fail at three or four Olympics in a row are normally cast adrift. But not swimming.

Swimming had a World Championship coming up and Miskimmin’s men were on a mission to buy success. A tax payer’s grant of $1.4 million, plus PEG’s payments of $300k were approved. Surely, Miskimmin must have thought, $1.7 million should be enough to buy success. His Swimwatch critics were about to see the power of the government’s money; were about to experience the rewards of sport’s management, Miskimmin style.

And did Miskimmin’s minions spend? Did they ever? Like drunken sailors they worked their way through Miskimmin’s $1.4 million grant. On a per-swimmer basis this team will be the world’s most expensive. It has cost New Zealand $1.7 million to send fourteen swimmers to the 2013 World Championships. That’s a stunning $121,000 per swimmer. The world’s richest economy, the United States of America won’t spend half that amount. The fourteen swimmers will compete in about 30 races. Each race; each time a New Zealand swimmer dives into the Barcelona Palau Sant Jordi Pool, the cost of preparing for that dive will have been $56,600. The average annual wage in New Zealand is $57,158. The opulence; the extravagance of this exercise has been stunning.

But Miskimmin is aware his reputation, his decision making, his credibility is on the line. Money is of little importance when the CEO of Sport New Zealand has pride and position at stake.

In addition to the normal cost of running the Wellington Centre and the Millennium Institute, the 2013 World Championship swim team wanted for nothing. Here are a few of the add-ons.

1. Bill Sweetenham was flown in from Australia to coach half a dozen Millenium swimmers. I have no idea what that exercise cost but Bill never comes cheap. For three months coaching, an all-up cost of $150,000 would not surprise.
2. Lauren Boyle and Gareth Kean were sent to a Spanish High Altitude Camp for two week; were flown back to New Zealand for a month and then back to Spain for more camps and finally the Championships.
3. David Lyles was flown from China to New Zealand twice. Once to inspect the Millennium Institute and then to begin coaching.
4. The team’s pre-game’s preparation in Europe has wanted for nothing – Mare Nostrum competition, double return flights to New Zealand, high altitude camps in the Sierra Mountains and sea level training in the Catalan sun. It did seem to be a case of – if it might help get it, if it might work do it.

There is every reason to expect stellar results from this team. New Zealand has provided generous funding. Swimming New Zealand has spent it, without restriction. We have been told Miskimmin and his selected foreign imports know what’s best for swimming; can do it better than independent club coaches. Well, Swimming New Zealand has had the money and free rein to do it their way. If Miskimmin is right only a bounteous haul of medals will suffice. Nothing less will do.

But what does a bounteous haul of medals mean. Well this is the first year after an Olympic Games. World Championships held at this time are always less competitive. Many great swimmers have retired (Phelps, Veldhuis and Adlington) and others are having a quiet year (Schmitt and Soni) gathering their resources before pushing on to the next Games in Rio.

Lauren Boyle has been especially fortunate. The retirement of Rebecca Adlington and Allison Schmitt’s quiet post-Olympic year means two of those ahead of her in London will not be in Barcelona. What that means is that just to maintain her London position Lauren Boyle needs to return with at least a silver medal. Progress requires a win. A return on Miskimmin’s investment requires a gold medal from Lauren Boyle. That is the minimum.

Glenn Snyders was 20^th and 16^th in the London Olympic Games. However the World Championships include Snyders’ favourite 50 meter breaststroke event. To repeat his London performance Snyders will need to make a final in Barcelona. For Miskimmin to claim his plan for the sport works, Snyders will need to return to Los Angeles with a medal.

Matthew Stanley was 15^th and 18^th in London. He will benefit as much a Boyle from post-Olympic retirements. To just stay where he was in London, Stanley will need to make a final in Barcelona. Only a medal will show a return on Miskimmin’s million.

Gareth Kean was 29^th and 13^th in London. He too will need a medal in Barcelona to demonstrate that the decision to form a Swimming New Zealand training club in Wellington and the investment in round the world trips to Spanish high altitude camps was justified. Anything less and Miskimmin’s money will have only bought the status quo.

Progress will also require Kane Radford and Cara Baker to medal in their open water swims.

If the others on this team, that’s Sophia Batchelor, Shaun Burnett, Nathan Capp, Mitchell Donaldson, Samantha Lee, Samantha Lucie-Smith, Emma Robinson and Phillip Ryan are going to perform to a level that justifies Miskimmin’s policies and our investment of $56,600 per dive, $121,000 per swimmer they will all need to make a final; they will all need to be in the top eight in Barcelona.

Anything less than a gold medal, five other medals and eight finalists at this World Championships will not be a failure by the athletes involved. This has never been about their application or effort. Anything less will be a failure by Miskimmin and those at Swimming New Zealand charged with implementing the policies of Sport New Zealand. Any team result in Barcelona that falls short of these results and Swimming New Zealand will have wasted another $1.7 million of your money and mine. And for that Miskimmin, Renford, Villanueva, Layton and Lyles should be held responsible. And because we warned them their policies were flawed they should be asked to leave, sacked without notice.

By David

Swimming New Zealand has just excelled itself. It would be hard to find a better example anywhere of bad taste, deception and hypocritical insincerity. On their website SNZ has just made the following announcement.

CAMPAIGN TO THANK SPORT VOLUNTEERS KICKS-OFF

17th July 2013

We want as many people as possible to show their appreciation for the Sport Makers, who literally make sport happen, by sending them a thank you e-card available here.  Sport Makers who receive a thank you e-card can enter a monthly draw to win $500 worth of sports merchandise for them or their club.  Nationally there will be 34 winners a month, with at least one winner from each RST region. The ‘Thank a Sport Maker’ campaign is part of a partnership involving the Lotto Volunteer Foundation, RSTs and Sport NZ.  It will see sport volunteers sharing in over $1 million of quality clothing and sports gear over the next three years.

I’m sure many readers will be thinking that sounds really good. Swimming New Zealand is getting behind its volunteer army; thanking them for “literally making the sport happen”. And if that was all there was to this story then SNZ’s call to arms would indeed be admirable. But alas, there is more.

For some reason the new open Swimming New Zealand no longer publish Board Minutes on their website. Not only that, the Minutes of Board Meetings before the Miskimmin revolution have been removed from the website. The whole thing reminds me of a week I spent in Moscow during the Soviet era. Our guide refused to discuss anything that happened in Russia prior to the revolution. The Tzars? What Tzars? It seems like the new Swimming New Zealand has also “sanitized” the organization’s history.

I’ve always been a bit suspicious of “public” organizations that make deals in secret – the Millennium Institute behind closed doors. What do Layton and Renford have to hide? What is it that the membership is not allowed to know? The new Swimming New Zealand is clearly an organization where the members will only be told a Layton and Renford sterile version of how the business is being managed.

However one resolution Swimming New Zealand did pass recently and did publish was the decision to start charging administrators and officials an annual membership fee. In fact that rapacious decision was one of the first decisions of the Layton, Renford era. This is how the Swimming New Zealand website describes the new owner’s decision to financially rip-off those “who literally make sport happen”.

Membership

The following shall be the Members of SNZ

Regionally or higher qualified inspectors of turns, officials and nationally or higher qualified time keepers. The board shall set criteria and fees for any new classes of membership. These fees are detailed below. Affiliation fees are set annually by the SNZ Board however the board has confirmed that the fees detailed below will apply for 2013/14 and 2014/15.

Fee type	SNZ fee	Regional fee	Total fee
Technical official	$15	–	$15

I imagine there are few readers unaware of what I am about to say. On the one hand the wonderful organization that is Swimming New Zealand says that they “want as many people as possible to show their appreciation for the Sport Makers, who literally make sport happen, by sending them a thank you e-card.” And on the other hand Swimming New Zealand sends the organization’s thank you card out in the form of a new, unprecedented annual membership invoice. It certainly is a new way to thank volunteers – charge them a fee for volunteering their time.

If Swimming New Zealand is so concerned about showing their “appreciation for the Sport Makers” perhaps they should start by dropping their usury fee. And all swimming’s Sport Makers should consider whether holding on to their $15 but continuing to work at swim meets may be in the best interests of the sport they have served for a very long time. Just don’t pay the fee until Layton and Renford realize the immorality of their decision and drop the whole thing.

Thanking volunteers with an e-card and charging then a membership fee; the whole thing is typical of a morally bankrupt and desperate organization. Anyone capable of that con is capable of anything. In New Zealand I’ve been fortunate enough to know some fine administrators; men and women of impeccable integrity. Beth Meade, Jill Vernon, Jo and Allen Draisey, Tony Cooper – the list is huge. The very thought that these men and women should be charged for what they willingly do or did is repugnant beyond belief. Sending them an e-card just compounds the travesty.

Numerous people involved in swimming have said Swimming New Zealand’s new bosses should be given a chance to prove themselves. Renford, they say seems like a nice guy. That could very well be true. Layton and Renford may be the most personable characters you could ever want to meet. However it counts for nothing when they represent and stand behind decisions like this one. While that sort of behaviour is typical of their management they will get no support from this website. Human history is littered with example of good people doing some very bad things. Motivated by greed or fear or servitude or misplaced loyalty they betray their judgement and sanction scandalous behaviour. The decision to charge swimming volunteers a membership fee is fairly described as scandalous behaviour. The decision to then thank them with an e-card is worse – perhaps offensive disrespect gets close.

By David

Is swimming about to be cast adrift by Sky Sport? Yesterday this comment was posted on the Swimwatch blog.

David, how about a united call to arms for Sky to change their mind and cover the World Champs later this month? We have had coverage for years and to go back to this is a major step back in this day and age. They will be feeling vulnerable having lost other sports. Please tell all your readers to protest to sky. It is a shame that no such campaign has come from SNZ headquarters, I bet they do not even know.

It is entirely appropriate that a Swimwatch reader has highlighted, what seems to be, a change in Sky’s coverage of swimming. For several years swimming has enjoyed a pretty special relationship with Sky Television. World Championships have been well covered. Even the New Zealand Championships received a full Sky Television service. I have often wondered how much New Zealand National Coach, Jan Cameron, had to do with swimming’s position of privilege in the Sky corridors of power.

Until recently Cameron’s husband, Kevin Cameron, was the director of sport production at Sky Television in New Zealand. Did that relationship have anything to do with swimming’s wall to wall television coverage? There was certainly something odd about Sky’s involvement in the Swimming National Championships. It must be the only sporting event covered by Sky where their employees outnumber the spectators, where Sky vehicles occupy more parking space than the cars of spectators and competitors and where most of the sport on show is as dull as watching grass grow.

The spectacle of ex-All Black, Ian Jones rushing around the pool, breathlessly interviewing race winners is better entertainment than anything in the pool. Usually his frantic questions die without trace. Jones clearly does not understand he’s interviewing the new Swimming New Zealand generation; youth tutored in the art of saying nothing, skilled in use of the platitude and well aware of the Swimming New Zealand directive that no one speaks “to any media in a negative way regarding Swimming NZ Inc.”

If Sky is in the process of pulling the plug on swimming in New Zealand then Miskimmin, Layton and Renford have only themselves to blame. The sport they run is boring. The athletes in their Millenium Institute are programmed automations; strangers to the stuff of exciting television. Television looks for two things – close races involving domestic athletes who win international sporting events and athletes with exciting, interesting personalities. Television needs a good story.

I think it is probably true that Jan Cameron’s relationship with the boss of Sky papered over the sport’s shortcomings. But now swimming must stand on its own two feet; unaided by close family ties. And I suspect the product of swimming in New Zealand will not sell. Sky Television will move on; just as I would in their position.

Several years ago I coached Toni Jeffs. There were a hundred things television found interesting about Toni – her night club sponsorships, her Lydiard based training, her successful international swimming resume, her fictitious reputation for enjoying a party and her outspoken opinion on swimming administrators. At her farewell party, the night before Toni left for the Barcelona Olympic Games, two New Zealand and one Australian television network turned up to film the occasion. Kerry Ann Evans took us to dinner. Peter Williams and Mark Sainsbury were at the party. No current swimmer could generate that interest. Miskimmin’s Swimming New Zealand would never allow it to happen.

In the week before each year’s Auckland Swimming Championships I received a call from Television New Zealand. They asked, “Was Toni coming up to Auckland for the Championships?” If she was going to be in Henderson Television New Zealand would send a film crew to the meet. At the meet Toni would be interviewed. In the morning, David Myer, the CEO of Swimming New Zealand would call me, suggesting that Toni should attend one of his media programs. His call was all we needed to confirm the success of Toni’s interview. The truth was Toni had forgotten more about handling the media than David Myer ever knew.

Swimming today does not have the sort of media appeal generated by Toni Jeffs. Responsibility for swimming’s poor public profile lies squarely with three bureaucrats; Miskimmin, Leyton and Renford It is difficult to imagine they have the skills, personality or wish to correct the sport’s media shortcomings. Can they produce several swimming Walkers, Quaxs and Dixons; domestic stars capable of offering world class competition in New Zealand? Not at the Millennium Institute they can’t. Can they nurture interesting, vibrant personalities, capable of connecting with New Zealand’s television audience? That’s the last thing Swimming New Zealand want. What say Swimming New Zealand can’t control those with personality?

While the Miskimmin, Leyton and Renford sport performs poorly; while the participants are dull, groomed automatons; while Sky Television is no longer being swayed by family connections, of course the network is going to look for more attractive places to send their trucks. Sky want viewers watching their broadcast not switching to Coronation Street at the sight of Ian Jones holding some dripping robot, hostage to his microphone.

The Swimwatch correspondent, quoted at the beginning of this story, is right. It is sad Sky Television has lost interest in the sport of swimming; sad but understandable. Our “call to arms” however should not be addressed to Sky Sport. The target of our “call to arms” should be Swimming New Zealand, should be Miskimmin, Laytin and Renford. It will be interesting to see what they do about it. It will be even more interesting to see whether they are capable of doing anything about it.

By David

I can never tell which Swimwatch topics are going to attract attention. Quite frequently issues that I have found fascinating have had little or no popular appeal. And then a story comes along that clearly rubs an exposed nerve; that is unmistakably of significant interest. Two statistics seem to measure the weight of a story – the number of readers and the type of comments.

The Swimwatch article that questions Donna Bouzaid’s intentions has scored high on both counts. Clearly Donna Bouzaid’s raison d’etre needs explanation. For example, in the four days since Bouzaid was asked to tell us whether she was a Millennium talent scout, the number of visits to Swimwatch has increased by 43%. There is no possibility a surge of that significance is a statistical anomaly. Neither does it mean that the New Zealand swimming community agrees with the position taken by Swimwatch. But it does mean Donna Bouzaid’s purpose is of wide interest. Is she going to help those of us involved in delivering swimming to New Zealand or is she a hired one person press gang working for an elite coterie led by Miskimmin and Renford? The interest shown in the Swimwatch story demands that Donna Bouzaid answers that question.

The vitriol of reader’s comments is also an indication of a story’s interest and accuracy. How did Shakespeare describe the same idea – “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” We have had one classic example of this sort of wild reaction. A Bouzaid supporter expressed his or her frustration by saying, “You are such a wanker Wright, I am surprised no one has taken to you with a baseball bat.” The comments posted by Jane and JamesT are serious and important observations about this sort of nonsense. I recommend you read them both. Until I read Jane’s note, I had never considered that the comments section of Swimwatch and similar swimming blogs may be an indication of the communication maturity of those involved in the sport. But it is a good thought. Sadly this comment says that some of Donna Bouzaid’s supporters are infantile idiots.

However their overreaction could also indicate that Renford and Bouzaid have something to hide. Do you remember when Chris Moller attacked Brian Palmer at the Swimming New Zealand Special Meeting? Moller was in a corner so he played the man. He attacked the messenger. Is this Swimwatch comment an example of the same thing? Perhaps Bouzaid does not want to explain herself so arranges for attention to be diverted to the story’s author.

But the purpose of Swimwatch is to prevent that sort of behavior. I might be all the things Bouzaid’s supporters have called me. I might even be lucky to have missed having my brains crushed by Renford and Bouzaid admirers. But that does nothing to avoid the central issue of this story. Is Bouzaid employed by Swimming New Zealand to recruit swimmers for the Millennium Institute? Is she going to wander around New Zealand selling the tale that young swimmers from Gisborne, Napier, Nelson, Dunedin and West Auckland Aquatics will be better off living and swimming at the Millennium Institute?

Is she going to try and convince us that the theft of club swimmers; that poaching our club’s best talent is good and proper and will produce better individuals and a stronger sport. East German Stazi agents used to make the same claim.

Coaches in New Zealand should be told the answers to these questions. Donna Bouzaid needs to tell us and she needs to tell us now. Why? Because Bouzaid’s silence and the reaction of her followers is ominous. I have a feeling Bouzaid is as guilty as all hell.

There will be many who think this negative opinion is premature. But to these generous souls I say, it’s all a matter of trust. In the past three years dodgy deals and sharp practice have become the norm at Swimming New Zealand. Because the people at the top are new does not mean the practices of a generation have changed. In fact there are signs Swimming New Zealand still cannot be trusted.

A Swimming New Zealand Special General Meeting held on 28 July 2012 approved the recommendations contained in the Moller Report. That approval meant the recommendations became “shareholder” instructions to the Board. The new Board was compelled to act in accordance with those instructions. But this new Board doesn’t care about all that. Here is the instruction the Regions gave Chairman Layton and his new Board.

SNZ will no longer deliver the “teach the teachers” learn to swim programme. The Board will need to manage an orderly transfer of the existing programme to an appropriate New Zealand organisation.

Less than a year later Layton told the Regions his Board has decided to ignore this instruction. Swimming New Zealand will keep the learn to swim function. I’m not here to debate the rights and wrongs of whether Swimming New Zealand should be involved in learn to swim. I am here to highlight the utter contempt the decision of the new Board shows for the members of Swimming New Zealand. Layton and his Board do not have the authority to overturn a decision of a General Meeting. That can only be done by another General Meeting.

The new Board clearly believes they can act in any way they like; with no regard for rules or process. The environment they live in is toxic and it’s getting worse. In the new Swimming New Zealand the rule of law is antediluvian; today there is only the exercise of power.

In these conditions; in this morally bankrupt setting, would you bet the house that Donna Bouzaid has not been employed to pillage New Zealand clubs of their best swimmers. I certainly wouldn’t. In this Swimming New Zealand world “trust but verify” is irresponsible. Don’t trust anyone from Swimming New Zealand an inch until they prove their intentions in triplicate. And that certainly includes Donna Bouzaid.