Along with every other coach in the country I have been sent a 1400 word page of platitudes from Gary Francis. Gee, he has the most annoying way of writing. It is all – “thank you for that”; “I am so pleased about this”; “Let’s all sit around the camp-fire massaging each other’s egos and singing Kum Ba Yah”. I swear most of us could have written the Francis email in 300 words.

The heart and soul of his message are three changes to the New Zealand competition program.

1. Moving the selection meet for the 2019 World Youth Championships back from June to April at NAGs.
2. The NZ Open Championship would remain in June for 2019.
3. Olympic trials in 2020 would be moved to early April 2020.

In my view they are good changes. Well done Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) on detecting a ridiculous program and initiating steps to fix the problems. Francis says, “The current calendar is not advantageous.” That is as close as Francis ever gets to admitting it’s a load of rubbish.

Accepting the value of the proposed changes begs the question of why this post should be titled “Lunatics are Running the Asylum”. There are several reasons.

First – what took them so long? For two years Swimwatch and others have been saying the middle of winter, right before the short course championships, was a ludicrous time. But of course when Francis finally clicks onto the same thing it’s announced with all the wonder of Christ revealing himself to Paul on the road to Damascus. Like their change away from centralised training it is too little, too late.

Second – if the June meet is wrong, why is Gary Francis waiting until 2020 to change it? It is typical of his indecision. If it’s wrong, change it now. Francis seems to have no idea that an elite athlete’s time at the top is very short. Not everyone is Michael Phelps. For most, it’s five or six years and that’s it. Francis has just told us he’s prepared to spend 33% of that time making a change of date. Francis tells us that wasting a third of an athlete’s career on a bad decision is just fine by him. Well I don’t think so.

Francis says “The reason for this is that it is too late to move it – coaches and swimmers have made 12 month plans and are already focusing on the preparation for June.” Once again we come back to SNZ being the problem. The reason is not that coaches already have plans in place; the reason is it took Francis and his mates far too long to do anything about it. Remember the decision to go to June was made by SNZ. This is SNZ correcting their own error and taking another eighteen months to do it.

I have no idea how the pathetic Francis excuse ties in in with the decision to immediately change the youth selection meet back to April. There is no logic to that at all. The Opens can’t change but changing the age groups – no problem. It’s nonsense. Is Francis trying to tell us that coaches plan senior swimmer’s programs a year in advance but neglect their good young swimmers? If he is, that’s nonsense too.

Third – how long-term is long-term? At least Francis is consistent. He has been on about planning for the long-term since he arrived ten months ago. The speed he takes to do anything makes us fully aware that he means what he says – long-term is long-term. Daniel Hunter will be in an old age home by the time the Francis plan is revealed.

Francis says, “My intention was to gather evidence throughout my first 12 months and through consultation, observation and comparison with other nations.” This is not some academic Loughborough exercise. This is swimmers’ lives. New Zealand’s best swimmers haven’t got twelve months to waste while Francis brings himself up to speed on what world swimming is about. He should have known that stuff before he started. It is incredible that we are paying over $100,000 for Gary Francis to educate himself. It’s even more incredible that Francis is happy to waste a third of Gabrielle Fa’amausili’s career reading books and talking on the phone.

Fourth – have there been too many changes?    Francis says, “Swimming in New Zealand has had so many changes of direction at the HP end over the last 7 years. Simply making immediate changes again just didn’t seem right.” That tells us all we need to know about the Francis attitude towards change. Since Jan Cameron introduced centralised training there has been no change. Oh, a fleet of coaches have come and gone, CEOs have walked through the revolving door and offices have shifted but the core has doubled down, hanging on to the past like a clamp. In spite of what Francis says the speed of change at SNZ has been zero.

Fifth – beware of the trend to regional teams. Francis does not know enough about swimming to remember when I took SNZ to the High Court to secure the right for a coach and club to take their team to the National Championships. Before that case all swimmers went to the Championships as part of a regional team. There was no option. I wanted our team to travel as a club coached by Gary Hurring. I went to the High Court asking for an injunction to have the Championships stopped until SNZ allowed our team to travel as a club, Gary coached, team. One hour before the Court case SNZ phoned me and approved the change to club-based teams. And that is what we have today. That was a hard won and expensive case. It secured a freedom we should all respect. Beware of the motives of those, like Francis, who are in the business of stripping those rights away.

And finally – Francis says, “Yet again, I stress this is still the tip of the ice berg!” We hear you. We are also aware that it was the underwater bit that sunk the Titanic.