Swimming NZ’s bold goals submerged in Paris

Just over a quarter of a second was the difference between elation and disappointment for the New Zealand swimming team at the Paris Olympics.
Only two swimmers at Paris competed in semifinals, both progressing to finals, with Erika Fairweather placing just 0.26 seconds off a medal in her top event. Had she clocked slightly quicker than her 4:01.12 seconds effort in the 400m freestyle, a swimming medal drought since 1996 would have ceased.
In the 400m freestyle, Fairweather was seeded behind third-placed Canadian teenage phenom Summer McIntosh by just 0.28 seconds, closing the gap slightly to place fourth behind American Katie Ledecky.
It was the closest any Kiwi has come to an Olympic swimming medal in 28 years; the closest by a woman since 1952.
Two days later, Lewis Clareburt placed sixth in the 400m individual medley final, the event in which he holds the Commonwealth record. 
These top-six results were all over in 36 hours, but it was already the best team result since Danyon Loader won double gold at Atlanta in 1996.
Good on one level, but not so good when viewed through Swimming New Zealand’s public funding and declared goals.
Swimming NZ, with two world champion podium prospects in Paris, should be disappointed. The federation received nearly $1.7m in the past year from High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) towards delivering Olympic medals, which usually come from personal best times.
But in Paris none of that occurred.
Since 2012, just Clareburt and Fairweather have contested individual Olympic swimming finals for New Zealand. In the past 40 years, only seven others have.
Fairweather also placed seventh in the 200m freestyle at Paris and her leadoff split played a major part in getting the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay into an Olympic final for eighth. She later placed eighth again, in the 800m freestyle, before telling the media she was “buggered, but proud” after her big week.
Still only 20, Fairweather is the country’s most successful swimmer since Loader, having competed in more Olympic finals than the entire New Zealand swimming team between Atlanta 1996 and Tokyo 2021.
In February, she won three medals, one of each colour, while qualifying for Paris at the world championships in Doha.
While disappointed to be shut out of the medals this time, Fairweather was the major contributor in New Zealand getting the most top-eight Olympic placings since Los Angeles in 1984, when three swimmers each placed in two finals, including Gary Hurring’s fourth in the 100m backstroke.
Hazel Ouwehand was the first Kiwi swimmer off the blocks, in the 100m butterfly. Despite clocking faster than any other Kiwi woman ever, she was unable to progress to the semifinals and her Olympics was over before Fairweather’s big week had started. Ouwehand placed a creditable 18th.
That might not, however, have been good enough for Swimming NZ’s Olympic programme manager, Gary Francis. He said each member of the swimming team would be competitive, meaning a progression to semifinals and finals. 
“Everyone going to the Olympics is going to be competitive in the evenings (finals). No one is going just to enjoy the experience of the morning swim (heats) and then spectate after that,” Francis told Radio New Zealand before leaving for Paris.   
That’s either tough talk or hot air. It implied all swimmers would progress out of the heats, but some weren’t seeded inside the top 24 and would not be expected to progress.   
Francis had a similar message before the 2021 Tokyo Games after just three competitors had swum a second time at Rio in 2016.
“We can’t keep sending swimmers and not have them make semifinals,” he said. “We’re no longer carrying passengers – everybody is going to be in the front seat and driving.”
Francis may now wish to explain his stance given that Fairweather and Clareburt, as world champions, were the only Kiwis to contest semifinals Paris, let alone finals. They were also the only two to do so at Tokyo. At each of the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, five did. That should concern HPSNZ bosses.
Had Swimming New Zealand made a serious attempt to prepare, qualify and send a men’s relay team to the world championships, which was a qualifying competition for Paris, it might have also got a men’s relay into an Olympic final or close to one. Clareburt would most likely have competed in that, too.  At the 2024 national championships, a club relay clocked a time that would have come seventh at the earlier 2024 world championships – and that’s without at least one of our top four swimmers.     
Eve Thomas was the only other swimmer who had previously clocked a time that would have made a final. She placed 12th twice, in the 800m and 1500m freestyle, and was also in the relay final. In events over 200m, just the top eight get a second swim.
While Thomas hoped to swim an individual final, she is one of just three Aquablacks to place top-12 three times at the same Olympics.  In 1996, Loader did it four times.
Only Thomas, Fairweather and Clareburt were initially seeded top-16 into Paris. Most of the rest, all of whom were first-time Olympians, would have had to swim considerably faster than higher seeded competitors to progress out of the heats so would not expect a second swim. Two debuted as Aquablacks in Paris, the toughest environment to do so.
But HPSNZ, which allocates taxpayer funding to sports federations, expects Swimming NZ to do its utmost to produce Olympic medallists from highly ranked swimmers.  
Splitting the team into different and shortened pre-Olympics preparation camps in two different countries simultaneously, and completely scrapping a preparation camp before last year’s world championships is not the ideal approach to driving team unity and top performances.
But that’s what Swimming NZ did and some swimmers and their parents were furious.
Swimming has the poorest return on investment of any high-performance sport. More than 10 years ago, swimming was designated by SPARC (now Sport New Zealand) as one of six targeted sports, with $1.65m of annual funding. Funding reduced in subsequent years because of a lack of podium results.
Swimming NZ received $1.3m after the 2012 Olympics where Lauren Boyle was the sole finalist. Funding increased to $1.4m after Boyle won three bronze medals at the 2013 world championships.   
Core funding was slashed to $900,000 after the Rio 2016 when no swimmers, including Boyle, made finals.
“We’ve been disappointed with swimming for a long, long time,” then HPSNZ chief executive, and former swimming world record-holder, Alex Baumann said at the time.
That funding drop was considered harsh by Swimming NZ bosses who were forced to disestablish two key high-performance positions.
In what can only be described as a brainfart moment, it targeted five medals at the Tokyo Olympics despite only four swimmers having won an Olympic individual medal in NZ swimming’s history.
Then in 2018, Francis publicly wrote off getting medals altogether.
Ten years earlier, the federation was reviewed by elite coaching guru Bill Sweetenham, and again in 2011 by Wellington businessman and former hockey Olympian Chris Ineson to assess how podium places could be achieved.
But since 2016, just 10 swimmers have made Olympic qualifying standards.
Clareburt was the world’s only male to swim finals in both the 200m and 400m individual medley at Tokyo and the 400m medley at Paris. Moss Burmester, in 2008, is the only other male Aquablack to swim an Olympic final since Loader’s double gold in 1996.
So, getting three swimmers in the top 12 in one Olympics at Paris, with Fairweather and Thomas doing so multiple times, is comparatively right up there.
Swimming the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay final in Paris was a big deal, as it was the first time a female relay team had ever made an Olympic final for New Zealand. As they did in the heats in Tokyo, both Fairweather and Thomas swam the relay. Caitlin Deans did a lifetime best in her split with Laticia Transom also swimming under two minutes.
But it was a medal Swimming New Zealand wanted at Paris. HPSNZ and sports minister Chris Bishop would have also wanted that, given the millions of taxpayer dollars that have been ploughed into the federation over the years
Come the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, it will be more than 30 years since New Zealand has won an Olympic swimming medal.
Given fewer swimmers are even reaching semifinals compared with 2008 in Beijing – when calls for earlier reviews commenced – perhaps it’s time for a fuller review into Swimming NZ, both in governance and in operations.
The report of any review should be made public, and should address barriers to competing in Olympic semifinals, let alone winning medals.