Swimming New Zealand Open Could Conflict With NCAAs

Photo Courtesy: BW Media

By Dave Crampton

Swimming New Zealand is again under fire after changing the date of its 2016 New Zealand Open, which doubles as a qualifying event for Rio.

It has changed the date from late April, to March 28 to April 1. This is just two days after the 2016 NCAA Championships, meaning some nationally ranked swimmers could have their Rio prospects jeopardised.

Swimming New Zealand has had a difficult year, with the sacking of its head coach David Lyles, the departure of its high performance director Luis Villanueva, funding cuts and loss of sponsorship. Consequently most top New Zealand swimmers are training abroad, with Aquablack Emma Robinson the most recent to leave after the closure of the High Performance unit in New Zealand’s capital city, Wellington late last year.

Swimming New Zealand is yet to appoint a head coach, and won’t do so until after the World Championships in Kazan.

Robinson has been based in Australia since February, and trains with fellow New Zealander Lauren Boyle.

“I came here because of the coaching situation in New Zealand at the moment, it’s a bit average,” she said.

Others, such as Glenn Synders and Corey Main, may well say the same about the about the federation’s Olympic qualifying programme schedule. The NCAA championships – the culmination of the college year – ends on March 26 for men and March 19 for women.

This gives little time to adjust from short course pool to the long course Olympic length pool, with male swimmers particularly affected.

Matthew Hutchins, a top freestyler on scholarship at the University of Wisconsin, told the New Zealand Herald he was not impressed.

“I’m devastated. Our [college] season finishes two days before the Open and we now have to travel 20 hours and compete the next day. It was previously over a month.”

Breaststroker Natasha Lloyd is another who is annoyed.

“Now we are left with a few days to cope with the massive adjustment from 25 yards to [50] metres. It surprises me changes have been made, [especially] considering some of the swimmers who are likely to qualify for the Olympics are based in America.”

In a statement, Swimming New Zealand CEO Christian Renford said the adjusted date is “the fairest for all competitors” and was made “after discussions with coaches and Paralympics NZ”. He said the change was made to allow an optimal build-up to the Olympics, and the previous date was outside the deadline for Paralympics qualifying.

Swimming New Zealand High Performance Media Manager Ian Hepenstall said NCAA has “always clashed in some way” with New Zealand Open.

“I would think [the] Olympics is significantly more important than NCAA.”

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