As you can see this New Zealand junior team has returned with one medal; a creditable gold by Erika Fairweather. In this case I believe that is dangerous. The swimmer next closest to danger was Pickett (4^th). The average placing of team members was a safe 18^th.

Dr John Mullen, editor of the “Swimming Science Research Review”, conducted a study published on the website, “Swimming Science”. Mullen examined 87 swimmers who had competed in the 2008 Junior World Championships and evaluated their performance in the 2012 Olympic Games. Of the 87 swimmers, 66 swimmers (76%) did not participate in the Olympic Games. Of the 21 swimmers (24%) who did qualify to compete in the Games, no one won a medal and just 3 (4%) managed to qualify for a final.

The message? Be careful of junior results.

And so while one medal is only a problem for the swimmer who won the medal, NZ’s very low ratio of personal best times is something to worry about. In this meet the team achieved 7 personal best times from 31 swims – 23%. This result continues a concerning feature of New Zealand swimming through the Commonwealth Games, the Pan Pacific Games, the World Short Course Championships the World Long Course Championships and now the Junior World Championships. The table below shows the PB times achieved by NZ swimmers in each of those meets.

Through 5 international meets an average PB ratio of 24% is nowhere near good enough. In excess of 50% should be a minimum. One would expect the PB percentage at a junior meet to be higher. The swimmers are younger and presumably in a higher rate of improvement phase of their careers. But, for some reason, that is not happening in New Zealand. The questions therefore are –

1. Why is NZ’s PB ratio of 24% so low and
2. Why is the junior PB ratio (19%) worse than the senior ratio and
3. Why does the performance of New Zealand swimmers deteriorate the more important the meet involved. – from 30% for a regional championship like the Pan Pacific or Commonwealth Games down to 20% and 15% for a World Championship.

In my view the answer is too much championship racing. Evenly spread throughout a one year, twelve month, period New Zealand’s best swimmers have been expected to perform at their best in 5 major international championships plus 2 qualifying national championships. That’s 7 peaks in 12 months or 1 international PB quality peak every 7 weeks – impossible.

Of course I know that no swimmer swam the full schedule of 7 championships. However quite a few of New Zealand’s best swimmers swam in 4 or 5. Even that is a peak event every 10 weeks – still impossible. The sort of peak needed for a World Championships or Commonwealth Games requires twice that time, or around 20 weeks – a maximum of 2 per year.

And the problem of the race program is NOT the swimmer’s fault, or the coach’s fault. That problem is down to Steve Johns and Bruce Cotterill. They approved the national and international schedule and just look at what they expected. Really, they couldn’t organize a piss up in brewery.