Most of my time in the past nine months has been spent in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. It’s been quite an experience. I’ve seen the world tallest fountain and highest flag pole. I’ve visited Osama Bin Laden’s family home and Eve’s Tomb – that’s right Eve as in Adam and Eve. One day I plan to share with you some of the swimming stories from this Arabian experience.

But today I am in Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia, trying to catch up with what’s been going on in New Zealand. From 8000 miles away I could well get the wrong impression but it does seem as though quite a bit has changed. Christian Renford has gone. Clive Power has been replaced by an American called Jerry Olszewski, High Performance Sport New Zealand has slashed the funding of swimming, unbelievably the Zone competition is still being shown live on Sky television and with equal astonishment Mark Berge and Sam Rossiter-Stead are still involved in Swimming Wellington.  

I’m not sure where to start. Covering all those changes is more than can be discussed in one Swimwatch story.

Perhaps the best place to begin is the decision of High Performance Sport New Zealand to reduce the government’s funding of swimming – down by $400,000 to $900,000. Two thoughts came to mind when I read this bit of news. One of them is, “I told you so” and the other is “schadenfreude”. Even the worst critic of Swimwatch must surely admit that for 15 years Swimwatch has predicted that the policy being followed by the Miskimmin’s chosen leaders would fail to produce Olympic medals and would eventually result in Miskimmin punishing the sport by cutting its funding. In 2016, it seems, both these predictions came to pass.

Of course I think it’s ironic that the person who ordered the policy, demanded the changes and controlled the funding that caused the failure also gets to punish those that did his bidding. But swimming, you were told: the state is never wrong. You willingly accepted the direction and the money from HPSNZ. You did what you were told and spent up large. But did you ever believe that there would be no punishment for failure? If you did then you were naïve and you never read Swimwatch.

Of course Miskimmin was going to make swimming pay. In an interview with the New Zealand Herald Bruce Cotterill made a sad attempt to gloss over the failure. As generations of SNZ Chairman have done before him he trotted out well-worn excuses – “Lauren’s unfortunate illness” and “the most successful swimming era since the mid-1990s” and “five world championship medals and two junior world championships medals” and “16 in the top-50 of whom 12 look capable of going to Tokyo.” But Cotterill knows that for Miskimmin winning Olympic Game’s medals is all that counts. And its 20 years since New Zealand swimming managed that.

My reaction to the Miskimmin cuts would not have been to trot out a string of excuses. I would have welcomed HPSNZ getting the hell out of my sport. HPSNZ has been nothing but trouble since they first arrived with their cheque book in hand. Miskimmin has just done swimming a huge service. Miskimmin’s contribution could have been better if he had taken the other $900,000 and buggered off. However getting rid of his influence one step at a time is progress.

Because right now swimming is going to have to grow up. It’s going to have to learn to stand on its own financial feet. It’s going to have to learn to run and manage a normal business. And from that private enterprise environment champions will come.

There will be pain of course. Already I have read about fees being charged for swimmers coaches and administrators to get into national championships. I have seen that officials are going to be charged for t-shirts and user-pays fees are about to increase. And of course I don’t like it. No one would. But if the result is that the Board of Swimming New Zealand produce a stand-alone business and get Miskimmin the hell out of their hair then I’m more than happy to see Joe Davidson pay for her t-shirt.

I encourage Swimming New Zealand to push on down the road Miskimmin’s 26% cut has begun. Take advantage of the new opportunity. Grab Miskimmin’s lemon and make lemonade. Who knows in a couple of years swimming may be able to tell Miskimmin to spend his $900,000 somewhere else. And don’t just rely on charging New Zealanders more but look closely at the costs of running the business. There is fat in the SNZ accounts. When I left New Zealand SNZ had more Mazda SUVs that Hertz. The business would do well by starting on a healthy low cost diet.

And so here at Swimwatch we see the reduction in funding as doing nothing but good. Unwittingly Miskimmin has extracted the sport from being a fully funded state welfare beneficiary. Unknowingly he has begun a process that will lead to strength and independence. Accidentally he has brought back a free enterprise environment where champions can flourish. Inadvertently he has forced us all to grow up. And hopefully we will never go back.