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New Zealand Juniors

By David

Far too much of what is written on Swimwatch is a complaint about something or another. This isn’t right; they did that wrong – on and on it goes. It’s hardly surprising, mind you. Miskimmin’s new Swimming New Zealand is a gift that keeps on giving. When SNZ increase fees without following corporate rules, when they write badly worded selection papers; when the best thing going for the sport is its fleet of Mazdas in the company car park – it’s hardly surprising someone is going to complain.

And today is no different. Except this time I promise to end this explanation of another Swimming New Zealand shortcoming with a light hearted sporting tale from 1972. But first the train wreck that is Swimming New Zealand.

Have any of you had a chance to read the item discussing the results of the New Zealand Junior Championships posted on the Swimming New Zealand website? For the benefit of foreign readers I should explain that the New Zealand Junior Championships are very different from the United States 18 years and under version. The New Zealand meet is for swimmers 12 and under. It has three age groups 10 and under, 11 and 12; three sets of qualifying times and three sets of national champions. In every respect it mimics the Open National Championships. In every respect that is except one. At the Junior meet the participants are still in primary school.

I think the whole thing is sick. It demonstrates all the appalling bad taste of those pre-teen girls’ beauty pageants. But some quotes from the Swimming New Zealand website explain this better than I can.

  1. The pair finished with seven gold medals each to top the individual medal count.
  2. Freesir-Wetzell gained two further wins today in the 10 & under division 200m medley and 100m freestyle. She was the leading medalist overall with nine medals, comprising seven gold and two silver.
  3. Tawa’s Jack Plummer had the most medals with nine comprising four gold, four silver and a bronze with today’s sole win in the 11 years 100m breaststroke.
  4. He played a pivotal role in helping the United Swimming Club to top honours on club points on 1003. Howick Pakuranga were second on 962 from North Shore 625.

Would you believe it – some lunatic at Swimming New Zealand actually sees merit in the news that a 10 or 11 or 12 year old child has been flogged through seven, eight, nine or ten races in two days. I think it’s child abuse. And as for the clubs that participate in the travesty; that too is a scandal verging on the exploitation of the young. I wonder what their committees think of the 18th century custom of using 12 year olds in British coal mines. Oh, I understand the motivation. I wonder how many parents are flocking to the winning club in the hope their child will be the next 10 and under national champion. As normal, I suspect the motive is money; Swimming New Zealand and clubs pandering to the parental greed for juvenile sporting fame see a fortune in selling an infantile dream.

There may be some who find my opinion less than persuasive. That’s fine. Let’s see what the experts have to say. Three Olympic Games ago the American Aquatic Research Centre in Boulder, Colorado scanned the hand joints of every member of the American Olympic team. Their purpose was to determine what portion of the swimmers had been early developers, on time and late developers. Evidently the rate at which the hand joints close can measure an individual’s physical maturity. Of the forty athletes tested only two had matured early, five had matured on time and the majority were late developers.

In New Zealand Junior Nationals terms what that data means is that only two members of the world’s most successful swim team would have been placed in a New Zealand Junior Championship race. The others would have been well down the field or wouldn’t have qualified for the event in the first place. The American scientists concluded that the probable explanation for the stunning failure of swimmers who develop early is the almost impossible burden of handling their early success, followed by the struggle to stay ahead of late developers who were such easy beats a few years earlier. For example how many of those lauded on Swimming New Zealand’s website this week are going to be able to hold off a late developing “Lauren Boyle” who was well behind this weekend in Wellington.

Over and over and over again it happens; Junior Nationals winners find it impossible to handle the “shame” of being beaten by slow swimmers who used to be miles behind; often didn’t even make finals. Interpreting it all as a failure on their part the early superstars go off to the local surf patrol or to a water polo team. And it’s absolutely understandable.

The aspect of all this that annoys me most is that Swimming New Zealand goes out of its way to encourage the failure of the sport’s early developers. They put on a “one-site” National Championship, they crown the winner as a National Champion, They award National Championship medals, they present a national best club award and they wax eloquent about the Olympian efforts of New Zealand’s best ten year olds. For example – “Manager Kent Stead said the new format for the championships proved a success. “It’s the first time in many years that the Junior Championships have been held at a single venue,” Stead said. “It made for some great racing with some excellent personal bests set across the board. This resulted in a fantastic atmosphere with spectators and swimmers cheering on fellow competitors”.

It may have been a fantastic atmosphere for Kent Stead. It most certainly was a funeral pyre for the swimming futures of many. It is also why the swimmers at West Auckland Aquatics who qualified for Wellington were encouraged not to go. None of them did and their prospects for a successful swimming career just got better.

It would be wise for Swimming New Zealand to learn from the American experience. USA Swimming dropped the whole idea of 10 year old national champions for all the reasons mentioned in this report. But Layton, Renford, McKee, Power, Hunt, Cotterill and Brown are going to do things Miskimmin’s way irrespective of what the Americans or the author of Swimwatch might think; regardless of the damage they inflict on the sport of swimming. You see, to them, the event has a redeeming feature trumping all others – it makes them money.

And now for a bit of nostalgia. The weather in Auckland has been so hot this week I decided to take a thermos flask of cold lime juice to the pool. After rummaging around in some old drawers I found a blue plastic and glass thermos given to me in 1972. I won it as part of the Victoria University road running team. In the 1972 Wellington to Masterton 100 kilometer relay our team won the handicap section. The prize for our victory was a thermos each. And so if anyone asks what Peter Snell, Murray Halberg, Bill Baillie and the author of Swimwatch have in common. We have all won the Wellington to Masterton Relay. My bet though is that I’m probably the only one who still has their first place thermos.

 

This entry was posted on Friday, February 21st, 2014 at 12:50 am and is filed under Racing . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Maryann Corrigan

    Hi David , I see that you have swimmers attending manawatu opens. Will you be in pnth over the weekend? There is a couple of us who would like to meet if you are. Would appreciate confidentiality at this point. Regards maryann

  • David

    Just received this email from New Zealand master track coach – Arch Jelley. His message is what you’d call vintage Arch and tells you much about why he was a world class coach.
    Hi David,
    Well done for being in a team that won the handicap section of the big relay some years ago. I’m not usually prone to boasting and I don’t have a blue thermos, but I do have a medal for being in the Owairaka A team which smashed the race record by about 10 minutes in 1961 and I think the team that finished 2nd, was 17 minutes back. We did have a few handy runners in the team, though, like Olympic champion Murray Halberg and Olympic marathon runner Jeff Julian. I took fastest time in running up the big hill when visibility was almost down to nil, an effort which drew from Julian the dry comment, “Not bad for a veteran.” (I was 39 at the time.) Had Puckett and Snell been available, I am pretty sure our club selector would not have selected me as he always drew up strict guidelines for selection and the final places always went to those doing well in the final trial. No, I’m certain I would not have been selected. (I was the selector.)
    I must admit, though, that a blue thermos would have been much more useful than a medal.
    Arch

  • David

    And another email from Arch Jelley – this time with a picture of his Wellington to Masterton Relay medal. Not as useful as a blue thermos but lots of fun. Thank you Arch.
    “An actual photo of a typical runner from the 1960’s, the era of Lydiard, Snell and Halberg. Some say that this is a photo of Arthur Lydiard reaching the summit of the Waitaks for the first time when he wasn’t that fit. Others are sure it is Peter Snell trying to hitch a ride back to Arthur’s place on his first attempt at the 22 mile Waitak run. Others say the runner is a bit too muscular to be Arch Jelley who was rather on the small side.”

  • Jacks Dad

    Oh dear
    David, what a grumpy old man you are.
    So according to you, it is child abuse to let a child enter a
    competition; clubs are all forcing kids to do too much in order to bump up
    their rankings or so that they can get more money and the kids will all be
    burnt out and disillusioned before they ever amount to anything.

    What world is it that you live in?

    Personally, I was blissfully unaware that your “Blog” existed until someone pointed out that you were referencing my son Jack Plummer’s medals at Juniors as some kind of evidence that the whole of NZ swimming is out of control and doomed.

    It seems that you don’t like Juniors and of course you are entitled to your
    opinion. However, I would just like to get a few facts clear as I am certain that Jack is not unique.

    Firstly, Swimming NZ’s press release did contain a few factual errors and Jack actually won 11 medals. He swam 12 events over 3 days in 4 sessions… an average of 3 races per session. No heats, all straight finals. Six of those events were over 50 metres, so perhaps not quite as demanding as you make out.
    In fact it is not even as demanding as the Regional Long Course Champs
    in terms of the overall workload. He thought about the events and how the timings fell, he was offered the opportunity to do fewer events, but he made the final decision what to race in. Apparently it turns out that 11 and 12
    year olds are actually quite capable of making decisions that they are involved
    in and even if they get it wrong, they can learn from this.

    However, there was indeed a lot of pressure generated by the standard of the competition, with every race fiercely contested. This was combined with a slightly unusual, but unavoidable, shortage of proper recovery time due to the need to wait for medal ceremonies. As a result of this, Jack’s coach was
    sufficiently concerned that he might not be getting enough recovery time, that
    he scratched him from one event that he might have gained more club points in,
    in order to give him more time to recover before a relay with the Regional
    team, for which the club got no points. Seems strange that a coach might actually put the wellbeing of the swimmer first? But maybe the view you
    hold is a bit cynical and out of touch now?

    Jack only increased his training to four sessions per week late last year and they are all early evening sessions. This allows him time to do his homework, play soccer, go to the skateboard park or chill out in front of the TV or Xbox with friends. In fact all the things that any other 11 year old kid would do these
    days.

    But unlike many other 11 year olds, he is motivated to succeed, he enjoys the mental and physical stimulation of sport and the thrill of competing and he is proud of his achievements, seeing a direct correlation between the effort you put in and the rewards that come out in terms of improving times. He loves the water and gets to spend 6 hours a week with a group of really great kids at Tawa Swimming Club. Two of these kids, incidentally, are also 11 year old national champions. They are supportive of each other and in their sessions they still have time for jokes, laughter and to behave…surprisingly, just like kids.

    I have absolutely no idea whether Jack will pursue swimming through the “ranks” to the higher levels…but I do know that competitive swimming has been really good for him. We celebrate what he has achieved at the moment and I would hate to think that there are kids in West Auckland that are being denied this opportunity to experience success now on the off chance that they might make it in the future. The fact is that most of them won’t and having regrets about what they might have done if given the chance to improve their times in a competitive environment seems to be a far greater form of child abuse that could last a lifetime. It has also served to deny them access to the NZ Swimming training camp for Juniors, although I am sure that you won’t be too bothered about that.

    Making out that NZ is weird in some way and that other countries don’t provide this level of competition, is entirely misleading…over 50% of US states have bigger populations than NZ and so do the 3 main Australian states…Even some UK cities are bigger and at what age do most of these start State competitions? You guessed it, just the same as NZ Juniors.

    It is also interesting how many of the US 11 and 12 year old record holders have gone on to make pretty decent senior swimmers, including Michael Phelps, Missy Franklin and Elizabeth Beisel. Gabrielle Fa’amausili and Bobbi Gichard were Juniors champions from age 11 and it doesn’t seem to be turning out too bad for them. So it seems that the secret is not to be formulaic about what may
    or may not work in the future, but rather to make the most of every opportunity
    that is presented to you and to simply try to be the best you can be. When other swimmers start to catch up with these front-runners, instead of sitting back in a smug and self satisfied way and pointing out that it was inevitable, how about helping them through it? Even Michael Phelps went through a period where he struggled, but had the mental toughness and support to get through it. Would that have happened in NZ?

    The US study you quote has an obvious flaw as it presumes that winning at an early stage can only come from being an early developer physically…but that is far from certain. I would defy you to pick out the winners at Juniors from a line up of all of the kids there. Very few of them were extraordinarily big. Even if it
    were true, is going to a water polo team or surf sport a failure, or just another destination on the journey. It may turn out that one of these is the right sport for that athlete. Undoubtedly, the lessons learned in becoming a Junior Swimming Champion can be applied to a whole variety of other sports and even other aspects of life.

    If you look at this more broadly, later developers need someone to set the standard that they have to chase and to create icons to beat. These kids have put themselves out there and if you look at the times from the competition, you will see that they are raising the bar.

    So, in short, as long as Jack is happy, being fulfilled and enjoying his swimming,
    then I am happy, but what competitive kid wouldn’t want to be a National
    Champion and why would you deny that opportunity to them on a point of
    principle? Where NZ swimming goes wrong appears to be in not looking after and supporting these and other newly developing swimmers through the difficult phase at 13-16 when others close the gap and they have other potential interests and competing priorities. There is also simply not enough funding at
    the highest levels of the sport.

    Now go and fill your thermos with cocoa instead of lime juice and sit around with the other grumpy old men, convincing yourselves that you are right and complaining about how nothing is as good as it used to be.

  • David

    Swimwatch has just received a long comment about the Junior Nationals. Apart from the unnecessary personal insults, I recommend every Swimwatch reader studies this comment. It provides all the evidence one could ever wish to read about why the sport of swimming in New Zealand is sick. SNZ feed on just this sort of ignorance and blind stupidity.

    • Jacks Dad

      David

      Whatever others might think or say about you or Swimwatch, I commend you for publishing my response in its entirety. Swimwatch is all the stronger for allowing different views to be aired… So thank you.

  • Jane

    > He swam 12 events over 3 days in 4 sessions… an average of 3 races per session.

    It’s bizarre to me that this racing schedule is more intensive than all American collegiate competition where most of America’s stars thrive from 18 – 22. Conference championships, e.g. the SEC where New Zealand’s Natasha Lloyd just swam last week, have individual events over four days and one day of relays.

    The NCAA says of its of nationals championships:

    “A student-athlete is permitted to compete in a maximum of seven events of which not more than three may be individual events. If a student-athlete is entered in the NCAA championships in three individual events, that student-athlete may only swim in up to four relays. A student-athlete who swims more than the allowable number of individual or total events will be disqualified from any excess events and shall be prohibited from participating in the remainder of the event.”

    Source: http://cscaa.org/downloads/NCAADivisionIPrechampionshipsManual.pdf

    Only three individual events means only six individual races, tops. You would swim 14 races if you were both good enough to make top 16 in all your events *and* your college is good enough for top 8 in all its relays. On which you race, meaning you do both the 4 x 50 medley relay and the 4 x 200 free… Highly unlikely. Making the finals at these things is very tough; last year, 2:09.92 was sixteenth in the women’s 200 yard breaststroke at NCAA nationals. For comparison, New Zealand’s national champion and record holder Natasha Lloyd just swam 2:13.91 – her PB. I swam 2:14.92 eight years ago and it wasn’t good enough for top 16. The types of people swimming high numbers of races with both heats and finals is slim.

    All “conference” champs and the US national collegiate champs are ordered the same way as their nationals: http://www.georgiadogs.com/livestats/c-swim/14sec/ To swim 12 events, you’d need to be in both relays on day 1 (4 x 50 medley and 4 x 200 free, so to be good enough to be on both you’d have to be quite diverse), then two or three events (individual events and relays) all the rest of the days. The only difference is there are finals if you make it back. There are no heats of relays outside of the national championship meet.

    Most swimmers fight for relay places, so many don’t get one.

    Your average NCAA division 1 swimmer would have a similar schedule as the one that follows:

    Day 1 – 200 freestyle on the 4 x 200 free relay (1)

    Day 2 – 500 free (the Americans’ yards system has this event instead of the 400) (2) You’re fairly mid-distance, so you’re not in the 4 x 50 free relay

    Maybe a 500 final if you’re good (3)

    Day 3 – 200 free individual event (4)

    Maybe a final (5)

    Day 4 – You’re a freestyler? A place on the 400 medley relay in the evening and a minor event like the 100 backstroke to hold you over in the morning. Due to the level of competition, many people don’t make it back in their minor events. (6, 7)

    Day 5 – Either the mile or the 100 free depending in whether you go long or short – very diverse swimmers *might* do both. Maybe a slot on the 400 free relay if you’re of the sprint variety. (8,9)

    These people are all 18 or older. And before anyone belittles the programme, it produced Breeja Larson, Lauren Boyle, Shannon Vreeland, Nathan Adrian, Natalie Coughlan, Katinka Hosszu, Peter Vanderkaay, Ryan Lochte and Cammile Adams. And a whole lot of people as good as or almost as good as they are.

    I’m sure there’s a place for a range of racing ideals (“more than one way to skin a cat” etc.) but it seems wrong to me that we expect adults, many of whom are Olympians, to to handle less than our twelve year olds.

    If any of those times don’t make sense because they’re in yards, Larson’s 100 breaststroke from last week converts to a 1:03.69 short course (http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/results/conversions.asp). She swam nine races in total over the five days.

    Elizabeth Beisel is cited here – I’ve counted 9 races for her too during the meet. Both she and Larson are 21 years old.

    Just weird to me, really. I get that some kids want to swim loads of races – whether they should or not seems really questionable.

  • Jane_Copland

    > He swam 12 events over 3 days in 4 sessions… an average of 3 races per session.

    It’s bizarre to me that this racing schedule is more intensive than all American collegiate competition where most of America’s stars thrive from 18 – 22. Conference championships, e.g. the SEC where New Zealand’s Natasha Lloyd just swam last week, have individual events over four days and one day of relays.

    The NCAA says of its of nationals championships:

    “A student-athlete is permitted to compete in a maximum of seven events of which not more than three may be individual events. If a student-athlete is entered in the NCAA championships in three individual events, that student-athlete may only swim in up to four relays. A student-athlete who swims more than the allowable number of individual or total events will be disqualified from any excess events and shall be prohibited from participating in the remainder of the event.” (continued below “see more” link)

    Source: http://cscaa.org/downloads/NCAADivisionIPrechampionshipsManual.pdf

    Only three individual events means only six individual races, tops. You would swim 14 races if you were both good enough to make top 16 in all your events *and* your college is good enough for top 8 in all its relays. On which you race, meaning you do both the 4 x 50 medley relay and the 4 x 200 free… Highly unlikely. Making the finals at these things is very tough; last year, 2:09.92 was sixteenth in the women’s 200 yard breaststroke at NCAA nationals. For comparison, New Zealand’s national champion and record holder Natasha Lloyd just swam 2:13.91 – her PB. I swam 2:14.92 eight years ago and it wasn’t good enough for top 16. The types of people swimming high numbers of races with both heats and finals is slim.

    All “conference” champs and the US national collegiate champs are ordered the same way as their nationals:http://www.georgiadogs.com/livestats/c-swim/14sec/

    To swim 12 events, you’d need to be in both relays on day 1 (4 x 50 medley and 4 x 200 free, so to be good enough to be on both you’d have to be quite diverse), then two or three events (individual events and relays) all the rest of the days. The only difference is there are finals if you make it back. There are no heats of relays outside of the national championship meet.

    Most swimmers fight for relay places, so many don’t get one.

    Your average NCAA division 1 swimmer would have a similar schedule as the one that follows:

    Day 1 – 200 freestyle on the 4 x 200 free relay (1)

    Day 2 – 500 free (the Americans’ yards system has this event instead of the 400) (2) You’re fairly mid-distance, so you’re not in the 4 x 50 free relay

    Maybe a 500 final if you’re good (3)

    Day 3 – 200 free individual event (4)

    Maybe a final (5)

    Day 4 – You’re a freestyler? A place on the 400 medley relay in the evening and a minor event like the 100 backstroke to hold you over in the morning. Due to the level of competition, many people don’t make it back in their minor events. (6, 7)

    Day 5 – Either the mile or the 100 free depending in whether you go long or short – very diverse swimmers *might* do both. Maybe a slot on the 400 free relay if you’re of the sprint variety. (8,9)

    These people are all 18 or older. And before anyone belittles the programme, it produced Breeja Larson, Lauren Boyle, Shannon Vreeland, Nathan Adrian, Natalie Coughlan, Katinka Hosszu, Peter Vanderkaay, Ryan Lochte and Cammile Adams. And a whole lot of people as good as or almost as good as they are.

    I’m sure there’s a place for a range of racing ideals (“more than one way to skin a cat” etc.) but it seems wrong to me that we expect adults, many of whom are Olympians, to to handle less than our twelve year olds.

    If any of those times don’t make sense because they’re in yards, Larson’s 100 breaststroke from last week converts to a 1:03.69 short course (http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/results/conversions.asp) She swam nine races in total over the five days.

    Elizabeth Beisel is cited here – I’ve counted 9 races for her too during the meet. Both she and Larson are 21 years old.

    Just weird to me, really. I get that some kids want to swim loads of races – whether they should or not seems really questionable.

  • Jane_Copland

    … the deleted comments were my own, posted three times, sorry.

  • David

    Jack’s Dad – You are welcome. It’s a defining feature of grumpy old men. The cocoa helped as well.

  • Jacks Dad

    David – I was just trying to make the point that in its current format it is quite a fun event, where kids get to challenge themselves against other swimmers they have heard of, but probably never even seen. However, I do recognise that there are dangers where swimmers specialise too early, focus on speed rather than technique and don’t recognise that they may be big fish, but it is only a small pond! However, these are broader issues for the coaches, not a direct result of the event. Now I am going to hit the cocoa too.