Where Is The Rule?

By David

There are some taboo subjects in swimming. One of them is questioning the decision of a swimming official. Inevitably, you run the risk of one of those endless lectures about how officials are unpaid volunteers that the sport could not do without. However, questioning does not mean disloyalty. On the contrary, probing, questioning and seeking to make things better is the highest form of loyalty. You care enough to want to see things improve! Your motives are not a criticism of the past. Riding a stage coach from New York to Los Angeles was a fine means of transport. It’s just that first class on an American Airlines' 747 is better.

And so, with some fear in my heart, I would like to discuss a decision made by the referee and starter at the Regional High School competition at St Andrews School in Boca Raton, Florida last week.

The swimmer involved was in lane five of the final of the women’s 500 yard freestyle. The referee called the competitors to the start and handed the swimmers over to the starter. The starter invited them to take their marks. The swimmer in lane five crouched in the starting position and realized that her back foot was insecure in some water at the back of the block. For safety she twisted her foot to clear the water. She was disqualified. Why? What rule had she broken? She was told it was because she had moved her foot. But what rule does that break? She was never told, and I can't find it. I'm not saying the rule does not exist: I just want to see it.

Let’s look at what the starting rules say. First of all FINA:

SW 4.1 On the starter’s command “take your marks” they shall immediately take up a starting position with at least one foot at the front of the starting platforms. When all swimmers are stationary, the starter shall give the starting signal.

Then US Swimming:

101.1.2 (C) The Start: When the starter’s command “take your marks”, the swimmers shall immediately assume their starting position… When all swimmers are stationary, the starter shall give the starting signal.”

And finally Florida High School:

Once all swimmers are on the blocks, the referee immediately turns the heat over to the starter. When the swimmers are prepared, the starter says, “Take your mark.” When swimmers have assumed the correct starting position and are motionless, the starter activates the starting signal.

So what did lane five do wrong? She immediately assumed her starting position, realized her back foot was insecure, immediately corrected it and waited for the start signal. When she and the others were motionless the signal to begin the race was given and lane five started the race. Why has a flinch of the arms or a twist of a foot become illegal when it is not precluded in any of the rules?

What would the referee and starter at Boca Raton have had the swimmer do instead? Not move her foot, leave it insecure and run the risk of slipping and hurting herself? One of my swimmers slipped on a wet starting block during the New Zealand Olympic trials in 2004. The massive black bruise on her foot was visible by the end of the 100m race. If I'm reading this situation correctly, it reminds me of the zealous over-policing that went on when rolling on to the swimmer's front was first allowed in backstroke turns. Hundreds were disqualified for turns that are readily accepted today. Edit from... the editor, and a pointless aside: dolphin kicks during breaststroke turns are allowed today, and my "best" 100 yard breaststroke time occurred in a race in which I was DQed for a dolphin kick on the start... six months before it was made legal. My legal best time is .15 seconds slower. Oh, the frustration!

At the pool this morning , I asked the seniors, “Why are you disqualified for a twitch of the arm or a twist of the foot when neither breaks the rules?”

“It’s because they consider it to be a false start,” said one. If that is the reason, it is a bad one. Lane five moving her foot was not a false start, or anything like it. She could have stood there until next Christmas without diving in the water. To be a false start, the process of starting needs to be involved. To false start you need to start. And that lane five did not.

It is off the subject a bit, but officials do seem to be cavalier about how they go about telling swimmers and coaches about a disqualification. In this case the swimmer in lane five was told, “You moved your foot. You’re disqualified.” That disqualification cost the swimmer her first trip to the State finals; she swam fast enough to qualify. If she hadn't been disqualified, the swim would have been a big Personal Best. When officials are wiping out thousands of hours of work and hundreds of dollars of training fees and travel costs, they have an obligation to add, “and that is contrary to high school rule XY.” Then at least we could determine whether their decision was correct.

In this case we are totally open to suggestion. We have done as best we can to search the rules, but this doesn't mean we've found every rule in the book. All we know is that swimmers have been disqualified for this "offense" before and we don't exactly know why. We'd be very pleased for someone to complete the, “and that is contrary to high school rule xx,” for us.

Swimming the Waitakeres

By David

Arthu Lydiard didn’t much like talking about history. He preferred debating how to win in Beijing than relating how he had won in Rome, Tokyo or Munich. There was one exception. He never tired of telling the story of the hours, days, months and years he spent running the roads around Auckland looking for the perfect training circuit. A run so tough, so mind numbingly brutal that just running it would turn boys into world class running men. Finally he found a run of 24 miles through Auckland’s Waitakere Ranges. Seven New Zealanders earned the right to be called Olympic medalists along the roads and through the bush of Lydiard’s Waitakeres.

Alison first ran the Waitakeres the same year she qualified to represent New Zealand in the Commonwealth Games. There was no doubt about which achievement ranked, no doubt about which qualified her for the label of a real runner.

We wrote about Lydiard’s Waitakeres recently:

“In the haze and clouds that rise off Manakau Harbour, the hills that stretch beyond West Auckland are known for little but their slightly flashy suburbs and relative inaccessibility from the city by public transport. The city’s better off citizens find their homes at the end of evergreen crescents and avenues for a few miles into the Waitakere Ranges, but after the clean streets of Titirangi give way to bush, Auckland’s city limits are thought to come to an end.

Once the sharp, clean asphalt has surrendered to dirt roads and steep inclines, unsuitable for the well-to-do people living below, there begins a trek through the ranges that has become synonymous with runners coming-of-age. Numbering twenty four miles, a handful of people began pounding this route through Auckland’s volcanic hills in the 1950s, because a burgeoning coach called Arthur Lydiard told them to.

As you disappear into the clouds, into the region’s unforgiving hills and trails, hot and sticky in the summer, cold and sticky in the winter, a passing motorist or a nearby payphone becomes as distant as the pavement. Aside from training partners, people who have also been suckered into this deal and promised outstanding success, you are completely alone. Arthur Lydiard does not care if you crawl back into his house in the suburb of Mount Albert after you have completed your Sunday run around the Waitakere Ranges. He has promised that in ten weeks, you will be fit enough to run all the way to Italy. Sunday’s weekly journey around the Waitakeres was famous and infamous: hated and admired by those who labored through it every seven days.”

Lydiard said to me once, “It’s a shame you have to swim build up conditioning miles in a swimming pool. Wouldn’t it be good if you could drop buoys in a lake five kilometers apart and just have the team swim between them three or four times a day.” Of course cold water, alligators, the Loch Ness Monster and the like have prevented that being possible. However all is not lost. The people of Chile have provided a Waitakeres of swimming; a solution that could make Arthur’s idea a reality, that could place Chile in the vanguard of the swimming world just as New Zealand once was in athletics when its runners pounded the Waitakeres.

In a place called San Alfonso del Mar they’ve built a nineteen acre, 1000 meter long swimming pool. It’s fantastic. The 250,000 cubic meters of water is heated to a comfortable 26 degrees centigrade. Even the beaches have heated sand. Don’t get me wrong the Aqua Crest Pool in Delray Beach, Florida is a superb facility; the best I’ve ever coached at. But it is not 1000 meters long.

Just imagine, no more sets of 100x100 or 4x1000 IM or complicated descending, ascending, hypoxic, broken intervals; at San Alfonso its just a simple 4 lap medley or one lap fly warm up, followed by nine one length sprints. Consider the saving in dry eraser pens. Seriously though, I’d love to do a ten week, 1000 kilometer, build up in a pool like that to see if Lydiard’s idea worked. I bet it would. Ten weeks of timed 1000 straight swims and you’d have the aerobically fittest athletes around.

You’d have to do the next fourteen weeks of anaerobic and speed work in a regular pool, but I notice San Alfonso have several of them set into the sides of the main pool. It’s about time someone came up with something new in swimming training. We need to move on from the interval, “quality” training stuff of the last thirty years. It could be that San Alfonso is the answer. It would be fun to give it a go.

Masters of Reality

By David

Twenty-nine masters swimmers take part in our program. What an interesting crew they are. Two are US National Masters Swimming Champions. Swimwatch has already posted an article on Darcy; how her love of swimming began on a Greek isle in the late 1960s. Darcy won the National Open Water Championship this summer in her age group. In Seattle, Bob won the National 100 breaststroke title. His wife Bonny isn’t too bad either. She got a bronze medal in all three backstroke events at the same meet. Bob’s a retired Doctor.

In fact, the program has more than its fair share of doctors. There’s another Bob who spent twenty-five years in charge of a local emergency department. He gives the impression of quiet authority. I would imagine that’s pretty important as another gunshot victim is wheeled in. I sometimes see him wander into the pool and wonder what incredible things he must have seen.

At the other end of his career, there’s tri-athlete John. He works at the local hospital. We’ve occasionally discussed the administration of health in the US. Coming from a state health care system I’m still getting used to the idea of hospitals being profit centers. For fifty years, I’ve thought of them as cost centers that society pays for in order to care for its sick people. It seems strange to think of them as factories that turn out well people in return for a profit. What the US insurance companies rake off in the middle seems obscene. Whoever wins the next election here needs to do something about that. There is one other doctor, Allan, who’s a General Practitioner and I have to thank him for suggesting a guy of my age should take half an aspirin each day. I think it’s made quite a difference. Note from Editor: it was one of your doctor-masters swimmers who advised you to go to that checkup in 2000 that... well... prevented that blood pressure from getting any higher, wasn't it? Thanks, Brian!

We have a lawyer. I have mentioned him in Swimwatch before. He’s really, really bright. He insists on calling me his socialist friend; a grossly unfair accusation considering that in 1979 I voted for Margaret Thatcher in the British general election. I watch the Super Bowl around at Brendan’s place each year. On that one afternoon we become NASCAR, pizza and Budweiser red necks. In case you’re wondering, the Dallas Cowboys will win this year. I asked Brendan what he thought of some of the comments posted on Swimwatch demanding we stop writing on various issues. His reply, without comment, was that we post copy of the First Amendment.

Manuel is our fastest master. He swims to keep fit now, but in his, he day swam for Bolles, the University of Florida and MSU. He comes from Suriname and was friends with Olympic 100 fly champion, Anthony Nesty. He did a 50 yard time-trial the other morning and produced a 24.50 second swim. Not too bad, I thought.

And then there’s Alan. I feel a bit of a bond with Alan. He was wounded in Italy during the Second World War. My Dad was wounded in Italy as well. In fact, my father lost an arm and an eye when his tank was blown to bits half way up the hill they call Monte Cassino. He was lucky; the rest of the crew all died. Alan is a retired spy. Or, at least, he worked for the CIA. He doesn’t say much about what he did, preferring to pass everything off as, “shifting paper from one desk to another.” He saw the world in his CIA days. I have managed to find out that he worked in France, the UK, Thailand and, I think, in the Middle East somewhere. He probably won’t read this as he tells me he prefers “real” encyclopedias to that internet thing.

His partner Mary is a really interesting person. She’s a class act, generous and kind; clearly from a background where good manners are valued and dignity and honor are taught from a young age. She also owns an interesting swimming story. In her early twenties, she was flying in a twin engine Barron from her home on the mainland to a holiday island off the coast. Mary was the only passenger. As they headed out to sea both engines spluttered and died. It turns out the pilot had forgotten to check the gas. There was none. They had no option but to ditch in the sea. Mary says the landing was very gentle. The pilot did a great job. Mind you, after not checking the gas he had a bit to make up for.

The Barron ended up half a mile from shore and slowly sinking. Mary and the pilot set off swimming. Eventually they reached the beach and walked up onto the airport runway. As chance would have, it a Cessna was waiting to take off. The pilot knew Mary and got the two survivors on board and taxied them back to the terminal. Mary says the press chased her for days wanting to hear her story. She refused to answer the door. “I got one of the maids to do it instead,” she says.

The whole masters swimming thing is entirely positive. It’s good for physical fitness and mental health and its bloody good for the coach as well. I'm very grateful for our fantastic masters team. As you can see, they're quite a bunch.

Why Elka Graham Should "Dob In" Drug Cheat

By Jane

Most off of us have heard the story of Australian Olympic medalist Elka Graham claiming to have been offered performance enhancing drugs before the Athens Olympic Games. I think most of us agree that Graham should name the swimmer who made the offer, whom she says is now in retirement. I don't actually care all that much who the person was; I care who it wasn't.

There a whole hoard of athletes whose names have now been called into suspicion by Graham's Sydney Morning Herald post. She says that the swimmer was an "elite" athlete, indicating (but not specifically saying) that this person was also attending the Olympics. She doesn't say which country the person represented, whether they were male or female, and she doesn't provide any other identifying information aside from the fact that they've since retired. This calls into question not only every retired Australian swimmer, but many foreign athletes as well.

In a climate where every world-beater, and many lesser competitors, find themselves at the end of cheating accusations, it's important not to mislabel anyone. Obviously, Graham's revelation of the athlete in question will, or would, be quite a blow to Australia, whose citizens tend to view swimming as Americans do baseball and the English do soccer. Down under, national team members are like NFL stars: the average American can tell you who Michael Phelps is, whereas Australians know the names and events of at least half their country's swim team.

Some have leveled accusations at Graham that she has done this for attention. She has been active in Australian media of late, establishing a name for herself in much the same way as former Australian representative Nicole Livingston. Yes, telling this story has catapulted Graham into the public eye, and her media career may well benefit from the exposure; however, I'm glad she's done it. So long as the story is true - and that would be one hell of a tale to make up - I think it's great that this elite-level cheating may get addressed. However, someone (for I guarantee you that Graham is not the only person who knows about this) needs to part with the cheat's name.

I'm sure none of us want to look at everyone who swam at Athens and who now does compete not with an eye of suspicion. There are some very prestigious names in that club. While we all like to tout the idea of innocence until proof of guilt, and while we all realise that Graham's story is (right now) impossible to prove, we'll all wonder who the cheat is and we'll be suspicious of clean swimmers. I hope the person gets caught, but I hope his or her innocent teammates are cleared even more.

Watching Swimwatch

When your doctor asks, “Do you smoke,” what do you reply? I bet it’s either a firm, “No,” or maybe, “Just one or two on social occasions.” Even the packet-a-day crew lie like flat fish. A few years ago, the Marlboro man may have been as tough as hell, riding his horse into the snow capped Rockies; today he’s a social pariah, hiding behind a brown stained hedge, outside his place of work.

Television soaps are the same. There they are, running on for years – As the World Turns – 50 years, Days of Our Lives – 40 years, Coronation Street – 46 years, Shortland Street (of New Zealand origins) – 15 years, and no one watches them. At least, I’ve not met anyone who admits it: all that advertising and no one at the other end! Imagine.

It seems Swimwatch is a bit like that. No one reads Swimwatch. I’ve come across a few, “I glanced at it once,” or “I accidentally opened it,” but never, ever anything more. The mayor of the New Zealand town of Napier told me she never read Swimwatch and then proceeded to demonstrate a detailed knowledge of everything we’d ever published. We wrote about this years ago, but the trend continues!

Several years ago, a prominent official in New Zealand’s Hawke's Bay swimming district told me he never read Swimwatch and sure enough his home computer did not appear on our logs or our analytics reports. His work computer, however, had a very recognizable URL and it cropped up twenty or thirty times a month. I guess he didn’t want his wife to know he read our stuff.

So, what is the truth? We are by no means a widely read site, and we're by no means daily posters. However, we have fun with the site and we have a pretty consistent user-base, much like we did when we used to post to "Swimwatch 1.0" between 2002 and 2004. Since we reinstated Swimwatch on a blogger platform on November 10, 2006, this is what has happened.

1. We’ve been visited by 158,213 unique visitors.
2. The most popular story wasn’t a story, but was my son-in-law's photograph, “I’ll take the Camera He’s Using, Thanks.”
3. The most comments on a single story was 58.
4. The strangest family-friendly Google search leading to Swimwatch was, “what's a good camera to take pics of my fish”. There were number of search terms that I won't repeat here, suffice to say that Google definitely receives some odd requests.
   
5. The lowest day for visitors was 18, on the third day after we reopened, November 13, 2006
6. The biggest day for visitors was 8914 on June 25, 2007.
7. Readers came from 126 countries.
8. The highest readerships were in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, France and the United Kingdom.
9. The smallest nation appearing every month was the Seychelles.
10. The lowest visits from a country was one, from Fiji.
11. Our biggest referrer was Digg.com. The post Digg links to has nothing to do with swimming.
    

Edward, Jane and I began Swimwatch because we enjoyed writing and the only thing I knew anything about was swimming. Jane and Edward have a wider range of skills. Of course, we’ve got our critics; and we’re pretty bloody pleased about that. Much of the Swimwatch data is the product of their efforts. I love that quote of Lyndon Johnson’s, “If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim." I know exactly how he felt. Every month one of our new seven or eight year old team members will climb dripping from the pool, study me for a moment and ask, “Coach, can you swim?” Of course I know how Johnson felt.

Our most proud moment? We began ranking for this term a few weeks ago. This pleases us very much.

Good Manners in Swimming. And Other Areas

By David

Three years ago, just as we were about to leave the island of St. Croix to come and live in Florida, I prepared an important article for Swimwatch on how to peel a banana. Extensive research revealed that several techniques are used in the peeling process. Surprisingly, class structure appears to have quite a bearing. Just watch a banana being peeled and class, breeding and probably education are immediately apparent. If any of you are thinking this is a strange research topic, then I recommend you go and live on St. Croix for two years and see what you end up writing about. Peeling a banana is unbelievably sane.

Unfortunately, in the confusion of packing and leaving St. Croix, this small but important addition to world's knowledge base was lost. I was thinking about the loss as I opened the pool this morning. There is ample time to think. Opening our pool involves unlocking ten doors; that’s 72,800 doors since arriving from St. Croix. The unlocking process also involves dodging a good number of toads that come onto the pool deck during the night to feed. A triathlete and biology teacher, my friend Steve tells me our toads are members of the Bufonidae family, noted for their very small brains. I have no difficulty believing that. Morning after morning they flee from me by pounding themselves into the wall of the Plant Room. Learning, it appears, is a difficult concept for your average Bufonidae. Steve tells me I should have no fear and directs me to the following study note.

“Toads, like many animals, detect their prey visually. A shape that is long in the horizontal direction looks like a worm, and so the toad's brain interprets that as food. A square shape elicits no reaction from the toad, and a tall, thin shape is seen by the toad as the "anti-worm."

How, on God’s good earth, do these people know this stuff? I would prefer to be the “anti-worm” but sadly fit certainly into the square “no reaction” shape.

I do not mean to be unkind but the photograph of Alan Greenspan on the cover of his book has a gentle toad-like appearance. It is probably just his droopy eyes. Besides, I’m sure Greenspan would be delighted to accept Kenneth Grahame’s description of toad in “Wind in the Willows”.

“No matter what he was doing, Toad was always smartly dressed to the point of parody. Mole thought he looked extremely dashing and compared his own rather somber black smoking jacket that he habitually wore, to Toad’s gay apparel. And if Mole dared admit it, Toad, who always used a good cologne, was a bit smelly”

Talking of Greenspan, I have finished his book. He’s a fanatic on the joys of capitalism all right. Like all fanatics he runs the risk of contradiction. For example he classifies most “popularist” manipulation of capitalism as bad. The welfare state should be resisted at all costs. Leave the production of wealth to the market and the poor will eventually get their share, he says. At the same time, didn’t he sit for years as the Chairman of the Fed, an organization specifically established to interfere in the free run of financial markets? Didn’t he use interest rates and money supply to disrupt and disturb the market? Market manipulation, it appears, is okay if Greenspan’s doing it.

Sadly, double standards are hard to avoid, even in swimming. Like Greenspan it is often those who trumpet the moral virtues loudest who offend most; the ones who lay claim to “building character” and all that stuff. I notice Florida’s High School Athletic Association have attempted to control bad behavior. Their rules say;

“Student-athletes shall adhere to the principle of good sportsmanship and the ethics of competition.” (A breech of the rule will result in the athlete being) “suspended from the competition for the remainder of the contest, but not less than the next two regularly scheduled contests.”

In the last two high school meets I’ve been at, I’ve seen a swimmer, leap out of the pool waving his arms in Olympic victory, well before any of his competitors have finished the race. Another trick is, three or four strokes from the end of a race, the same swimmer will lift himself out of the water and look back down the pool in contempt at those behind him and deliberately take a water-shot with a well directed butterfly stroke at a rival coach standing on the pool edge. Fortunately the coach noticed in time and the deluge missed. This is bad behavior and should be punished. Coincidentally, Timed Finals have an op-ed piece up today about good sportsmanship in swimming. This swimmer, and several others, would be advised to read it.

Totalitarian Drugs

By David

Bernstein, a contributor to our previous article on drugs in American sport, posed the following question

“What were the motivations of the totalitarian regimes for cheating in the 70s versus today's cheats in a more capitalistic nation/world?

I cannot claim any profound knowledge of the workings of totalitarian state leaders. I do know of athletes I’ve helped who have suffered at their hands. In 1981, track athlete, Alison Wright was ranked in the world’s top ten in the indoor 1500 meters. Over the next few years all but one of those ranked ahead of her were done for taking some performance enhancing potion. Alison could well lay claim to having been the world’s second fastest runner; we will never know. Certainly it was a tough time to be a “clean” female middle distance runner.

Just over a decade later my understanding of the totalitarian mind received a quantum boost after reading the following New York Times report.

“A former swimming coach at a Potsdam sports club, Michael Regner, described how club physicians had initiated him in the distribution of anabolics to team swimmers, who included Kristin Otto and Silke Horner, both gold medalists at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Regner, who fled East Germany in August 1988, through Hungary described how a drug called Oral-Turinabol, manufactured by an East German company in Jena, was given to swimmers.’

They said Mike was living in Frankfurt and looking for work. I called and he accepted a coaching job working for me in New Zealand. I felt Mike had demonstrated his strong anti-drugs posture by taking his family, in mid-winter, through a guarded razor-wire fence where the price of being caught was instant execution. His commitment to the anti-drugs cause had been stronger than most of the rest of the world. Brendan Telfer from Radio Sport interviewed me about Mike’s employment. In a fit of righteous indignation , Telfer demanded to know why I was bringing this man to New Zealand. My answer was simple. Telfer may be against drugs but would his revulsion be sufficient for him to risk an East German bullet in the brain of himself and his family. I think not. Until Telfer could answer yes to that question, it was probably best for him to cut Mike and myself a bit of slack.

The time Mike spent in New Zealand had its ups and downs. There was a huge difference between the expectations of a man who had been at the vanguard of East Germany’s 10 women’s gold medals in Seoul and the resources of a New Zealand swimming club. It was difficult for Mike to understand that in New Zealand the state did not provide everything a swim coach wanted. Greenspan is right, capitalism is different and even a sophisticated, bright guy like Mike took time to adjust.

He did not try to hide his involvement in providing drugs to East German swimmers. He took me through his diary and showed me the occasions when performance drugs were administered. I was amazed at his meticulous recording and the frequency of their use. He was very firm on two points: the swimmers did not know they were being abused and he had no option. His livelihood and possibly his life were at risk should he fail to follow orders. He coached at the rank of Major in the East German army. The order to dispense drugs was expected to be obeyed. I believed him.

The really sad thing about it all was, if you put the abuse of drugs to one side, Mike was a brilliant coach. He had received a four year swim coach’s education in an East German University; a step up from what passes as coach’s education in some parts of the west – the USA excluded. The system they taught supported, without reservation the principles of the New Zealand track coach Arthur Lydiard. He and I saw eye to eye and never once disagreed on the training that was needed to produce a decent swimmer. He was fanatical about the benefits of good technique and 100 kilometers per week of aerobic conditioning; preferably at 5000 feet. The exceptional stroke drills he brought to New Zealand I still use today.

Mike was good enough that he left one question unanswered. If his East German superiors and been stronger ethical men, could Mike and his colleagues have achieved similar results without all those chemicals? I know you’re going to say, “No, because they haven’t done it since.” Remember though, they haven’t had the state resources behind them since either.

Why then did they use drugs? "Because they were told to" is certainly part of the answer. But the real question is why was the order given to include the blue 4mm Turinabol pills along with the vitamins and iron? Mike put it down to nationalism. Our nation wins at sport; therefore it’s better than yours. Our economic theory produces more gold medals; therefore it’s a better way than yours. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it; trying to prove the value of a nation and its economic management on the back of a sixteen year old's 200 breaststroke result.

Just about as stupid perhaps as invading Cuba, Korea and Vietnam were in trying to prove much the same thing. Abuse in the name of nationalism and economic theory comes in several forms and has many masters.

Greenspan is Right - Capitalism Does it Better

By David

I am currently halfway through former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan’s new book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. It’s a good read, far from the dusty tome of economic theory you might expect to come from that source. He admits to being a lifelong Republican, but makes little secret of his dislike for the current President or his admiration for the manner in which Bill Clinton ran the country. It appears Bill Clinton may have been a stauncher supporter of Republican values than his successor. Controlled spending, budget surpluses, getting out of regional wars and possibly even his Monica moments all have a Republican ring to them. Greenspan acknowledges that in Bill’s years Democrats did it better; Monica included, I’m guessing.

A central assertion in the book is that the contest between capitalism and communism has been resolved. Capitalism has triumphed. With very few exceptions, nations who once conducted their affairs along communist lines have turned to capitalism to improve the lot of their people. And it’s worked. In some countries capitalism got off to a rocky start as people struggled to get the hang of the having little state control. But today the standard of living behind what was once the iron curtain has risen dramatically. The application of capitalism may vary among nations but, Greenspan says, its acceptance as the paramount method of organizing economic affairs and ensuring prosperity is unchallenged.

Greenspan argues that the motivations for capitalism’s superior performance have been human nature and the market. Humans respond best when the have the freedom to take up new challenges, to improve their lives. Performance, he says, is best controlled by the wishes of the market place. The good and popular get accepted and prosper, the redundant disappear. And this, he says, is good. I’m pleased he stops short of proposing that the US Capitol, the City of Venice or, I would suggest, the New Zealand Government Beehive building, should be demolished just because they are old and inefficient. Even Greenspan, it appears, has his limits.

This week free enterprise and capitalism won another round against the excesses and inefficiency of the old state controlled regimes. It is official: private enterprise sport in the United States is now as good at taking drugs as any earlier state controlled administration. Athletes motivated by capitalist individual enterprise are injecting and sucking down testosterone, HGH and amphetamines at a rate the old communist regimes could only dream about.

No one should attempt to excuse the excesses of US drug abuse by saying, “At least it’s not state motivated and controlled. It’s just the excesses of a few individuals.” That does not work. The state was East Germany. Individual private enterprise is the United States. Of course the state is going to run drug abuse in a communist regime. That’s what central control is all about. Of course individuals are going to run drug abuse in the United States. That’s what capitalism is all about. The difference most certainly does not condemn one or excuse the other.

So, what are the drug abuse achievements that have launched the US into the forefront of drugged sport? Last week Marion Jones burst into tears and turned in a handful of her Olympic medals. Her apology was the best I’ve heard but could not hide an unbroken litany of lies and deception. Many say that it’s Jones’ relay teammates they feel sorry for. What if they too have to give their medals back? Fear not. You see, two of Jones’ teammates (Torrie Edwards and Chryste Gaines) in the 400 relay have also had to serve doping suspensions since the 2000 Games. That’s three of the four relay runners, juiced to their eyeballs. Do you recall what we said about East German teams caught with just one cheat?

Baseball, it’s called “America’s pastime”. Arguably, the sport’s most famous record is the homerun total. The current holder with 762 runs is San Francisco player Barry Bonds. To say he’s a bloody good baseball player is woefully inadequate. Unfortunately, it appears pretty certain he had chemical assistance earlier in his career.

World cycling’s most famous race is the Tour de France. In 2006 the race was won by the American, Floyd Landis. However his victory is no more. A test taken during the event has turned up positive for synthetic testosterone.

On September 24 2007, the CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency was reported as saying how pleased he was that the BALCO scandal had resulted in the suspension of 14 Olympic athletes. He was sure the fear this installed would curb the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Fourteen Olympic athletes suspended! That’s truly world class. Here’s to private enterprise.

To an outsider beginning work in US sport the scene is saddening and chaotic. Middleweight boxer Joey Gilbert, sprinter Justin Gatlin, sprinter and football player John Capel, 1999 shot put world champion C.J Hunter, world 400 meter champion Jerome Young and an endless list of others; the moral obvious. People in the US glass house should not throw stones.

New Zealand Rugby - The Living Dead

By David

Or at least that’s what New Zealand journalists are calling it. For those of you in the United States, who do not know what has happened, the New Zealand rugby team has just been beaten by France in the quarter finals of the World Cup championship. That’s a result about the same as the United States losing to New Zealand in a swim meet. Sure the score was a close 20-18; certainly the referee missed an illegal forward pass that led to the winning French touch down; possibly the sin binning of a New Zealand player for ten minutes was suspect; unquestionably the result was predictable. It was always going to happen; as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow.

Why do we know this? We know this because two of the three coaches, Henry and Smith, are no good. They can’t coach. You would be well justified, at this point, in saying something like, “It’s fine for you to Monday morning quarterback the reasons for New Zealand’s loss. Hind sight has perfect vision.”

But in our case it is not hindsight. You see hidden away in the Swimwatch archives is an article called “Rugby, Racing and Beer”. It was written on June 5 2007. To save you searching through the archives I will quote a few of the predictions we made back then.

“The next World Championships are this year in France. New Zealand will be beaten again.

New Zealand has produced some fearsome competitors. Men and women who it seems have used their home’s smallness to construct an invincible hardness. Sir Edmund Hillary has it. So does Russell Coutts, Brian Lahore, Peter Snell, John Walker, Susan Devoy and quite a few tough and proud others.

Graham Henry and Wayne Smith, the current coaching staff of the All Black team, do not. They fall into a group who are also affected by their nation’s size. A group who when the chips are down, when the rest of the world is stacked against them, choke because they are too small to win.

How do I know this? Two reasons; because they’ve always lost before and they make the classic error of weak people, they change their preparation before the big event. As the World Championships get nearer coaching errors will magnify. Eventually they will be fatal. In the semi-finals or maybe the finals, South Africa, England or, God-save-us, Australia will exploit the indecision and roll past the world’s best rugby team. What is a mystery is why Henry is repeating the errors he made in Wales. It appears he does not understand the logic of Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” But he soon will understand.”

Admittedly we did not name the foe that would bring about New Zealand’s passing. The result though, you must admit, is pretty bloody accurate. We still maintain the reasons are equally valid. Some coaches are just not up to the world’s great events. Henry and Smith have blown big ones before. Smith was sitting doing the same job eight years ago when New Zealand last lost to France in the World Cup. Who on God’s earth put him back there to do the same thing again? Oh, of course, it was Graham Henry. Henry had a “big-time” losing record in Wales and some idiot in the New Zealand Rugby Union decided the result would be different if the team he coached wore black instead of red. And that’s real stupid.

Certainly Smith was great in Canterbury and Henry was brilliant in Auckland. They won everything. What they can’t do is beat the world. You see the same thing in swimming. Jan Cameron’s teams will win the New Zealand Swimming Championships forever. She’ll never win you an Olympic title though; she just doesn’t have it. Duncan Lang did; in spades. In Florida you see coaches who are into the High School swimming scene but never attack the Nationals or the Pan Pacific, or Pan American or Olympic Games. They do not have what these events demand.

World class coaches can win State high school events; it’s not all that difficult. High school obsessed coaches will seldom, probably never, win the Olympic Games. The coaching skills and preparation are so different. To win a high school event you can clear-fell an athlete’s talent. And many high school coaches do just that in their head long dash to small time glory. Many parents are into the same juvenile dash and so thoroughly approve of their coach’s mania. To win a world event you need to set aside time to make a contribution to your athlete; over time to build an international career.

So, New Zealand, choose a rugby coach who knows how to win big international events. Here is a prediction from Swimwatch. Pick the other Assistant Coach to Henry, Steve Hansen. We know he was part of the loss to the French but we like him. He’s no County High School coach. He’s the genuine article. We think he’s a winner. Go on, pick the bugger.

Adults Behaving Badly

By David

High school swimming in the US is bloody incredible. I shouldn’t really say that. I have no idea what high school swimming is like in most of the US. However, one of our team members comes from California and he swears high school swimming there is full of fruit-loops. In Florida, there is no doubt about it: high school swimming is a wonder to behold. Normally sane people plot and plan with all the intensity and deception of planning an international invasion. Others, who, I admit, were a bit odd before the high school season began, go way off the normal behavior chart. Just about everybody involved is in need of some expert guidance. For psychologists, here is a new world of opportunity. I can hear it now,

“What field of psychology did you specialize in at University?”

“Florida High School swimming syndrome (FHSSS), it’s a rapidly growing specialty, offering attractive long term prospects of employment.”

You would hardly believe some of the things that happen down here. I know a coach who demanded another team be stripped of their points because a swimmer was incorrectly entered and the entry changed to the correct event after the close off date. Instead of a little sporting good will, the bloodhounds were released to search and kill. That episode amused me as the coach’s email concluded with that well known phrase, “I do not want to hurt the swimmer.” They all claim that just as they give the order to fire. It reminds me of people who hide behind "constructive criticism" when all they want to do is bash somebody. I’m told that it took a series of late night phone calls, meetings with secret handshakes and a retina security scanner to sort that one out.

I was watching a high school meet the other day. They had a single timer per lane. One of the timers got involved in a conversation and clearly missed the swimmer finishing in her lane. She wrote something on her timing pad. I hope it wasn’t the swimmer’s time.

Parents also exhibit FHSSS. I’ve seen some who insist on sitting in the same spot at each year’s championship. Finding someone else in their chosen place is reason enough to send them into rehab. I’ve heard parents demand trespassers move. Nervous? They are scared out of their minds. Before a high school championship, your average parent’s voice is an octave higher and 20 words a minute faster than at any other time. I was taken to dinner by the parents of one high school swimmer and offered a Caribbean cruise if I could get their daughter into the State Finals. I declined the offer but said I’d do my best. Coming to morning practice would have been more help than a Caribbean cruise.

High school championships also witness the acme of championship screamers. No matter how vocal they are, it is still true; a swimmer with their head under the water can’t hear a word. Edit from Jane: breaststrokers and possibly butterfliers can hear noise intermittently. But - ah - I never was quite able to catch what you all were saying, sorry.

One coach I know is in the habit of preparing a schedule of the area’s best high school times. The effort is enormous. The NFL could learn a thing or two about collecting statistics from this guy. The whole thing is meaningless. High school events are swum in pools that have the latest starting blocks, in pools too shallow to have any starting blocks, in meets that have one manual stopwatch per lane and in pools that have touch pads and the latest in electronic monitoring. The variation in conditions makes a mockery of his labor. Another edit from Jane: When my college team went to race a rival team during my senior year, the coach had posted all of our times and their times in a spreadsheet on the notice-board, separated by event. If our times were the fastest, they were highlighted. This struck me as weird. I already knew who was faster than me and who was in my general price range.

More square inches of newspaper copy are published about high school “stars” than Dara Torres and Rhi Jeffrey combined can muster. It’s a drug - an obsession - that I prefer to leave to others. Sanity demands no less.

The strange thing is you don’t find this kind of obsession at US national meets. In Indianapolis, for example, it was all good old fashioned competition. I win, you win, I lose, you lose; now let’s have a beer and enjoy the rest of the night. The difference is chalk and cheese.

Why is that, do you think? Perhaps it’s because the coaches, swimmers, parents and officials who get to the Nationals have experienced wins and losses, victories and defeats many time before. They have maturity on their side. They realize the futility of high school counter espionage. High school insanity isn’t needed because it doesn’t work. Whatever it is, I can’t wait for the US Short Course Nationals to roll around. It will be December by then and Florida’s bloody high school swimming will be done with for another year. Thank God for that.

Should a Coach own a Gun?

By David

I own three guns. I have an old Diana .22. I have a much more powerful ex-army .303 and a pretty basic single barrel shot gun.

The most used and reliable is my .22. My Mum bought it for me in the late 1950s from the Ohakune Dairy Company. I notched the stock to record each animal I killed. I can’t remember the total number of cuts but I do remember passing 1000 sometime around my seventeenth birthday. The primary victims were the region’s wild goats. My domestic chore was to shoot two goats each weekend to feed our dogs.

Strangely my crowning memory of this rifle did not involve killing things. We had just finished Sunday lunch. My mother always cooked a leg of lamb on Sunday and served it with mint sauce, roast potatoes and best of all green peas from our garden. After lunch my father wandered off with his fly rod to spend the afternoon fishing for trout in the Hangaroa River. He seldom caught anything but enjoyed the solitude. An hour or so later I set out to find and shoot two unfortunate goats. As I wandered along, I felt the call of nature and started to pee over a cliff down into the Hangaroa River. Below me I heard a scream, “What the hell are you doing?” I believe the question was rhetorical. You are not going to believe this, but in 25 miles of river bank I chose to pee in exactly the spot occupied by my father. It took me weeks to convince him my aim had not been deliberate.

The .303 is not as well used but did assist in the killing of 30 or 40 deer and about the same number of wild pigs. There could have been many more pigs but knifing them to death was considered a preferable method. It did less damage to the meat and better bled the animal. Occasionally I shot goats with the .303. My Dad did not approve of the .303’s excessive fire power being used on these small animals. I think the more expensive bullets were his main concern.

For years my father would not allow me to use the .303’s magazine. He believed that by having to hand feed each bullet into the gun I would waste less ammunition. Looking back on it, he was probably right. For a short time, after I was allowed a magazine, it was like world war three out there. I did once score a moral victory over my father’s frugal views on ammunition. I shot a goat and walked over to the carcass to find two dead goats lying side by side. My bullet had passed through the neck of one goat and into the chest of another. I still remember shooting my first deer with that gun. A mate of mine, Kahui Duncan, and I fired at about the same time. The deer dropped but we only found one bullet hole. Kahui swears it was his; I know it was mine.

The shot gun is virtually unused. I found sitting for hours, waiting to shoot a duck, pheasant or turkey, boring beyond belief. Besides the hopelessly unsophisticated skill involved in pointing a gun like this in the general direction of a fleeing duck and blasting it out of the sky never appealed to me. The fact the current US Vice President finds it an attractive sport explains a lot about his behavior in Iraq.

When the use of guns has been so much a part of ones early life the thought of using them for anything illicit is abhorrent. A reliable friend of mine told me a story of a swim coach in the Caribbean who got on the wrong side of the island’s drug underworld. Two enforcers turned up at afternoon practice and sat tapping their palms with loaded hand guns. Guns at practice, every mothers dream. I bet no one skipped lengths that day. It is interesting to compare gun statistics between New Zealand and the United States. Internationally New Zealand has a high level of gun ownership. Twenty percent of Kiwi households own a gun; a figure that is beaten out of sight by the forty-one percent of armed US households. There are 0.22 homicide gun deaths per 100,000 people in New Zealand, compared to 6.24 shooting deaths in the United States; 2500% more, not a good figure.

Any of my Florida swim team reading this, need not be concerned. The coach’s arsenal is safely locked away in his mother’s home, 8000 miles away in New Zealand. Happily, there doesn’t seem to be any use for guns in Delray Beach, Florida.