Aust. swim officials upset at costs

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33741, 14 January 1975, Page 14

Aust. swim officials upset at costs

(N.Z.PA Stat! Correspondent)

SYDNEY

The Australian Swimming Union is surprised and a little annoyed at having to pay $3500 to send o 4 swimmers water polo players, and officials to the New Zealand Uamcs in Chi istchurch. It had expected a bill of less than

The A.S.U. secretary (Mr Syd. Grange) said he had expected that the games organisers would pay the full fares of all competitors from their home towns to Christchurch.

Instead he found out only recently that the A.S.U. must pay to assemble the team in Sydney', and must pay the return internal air fares for the 21 members of the group who come from outside New South Wales.

Mr Grange is also upset that no-one told him until late December that the air fares from Sydney being provided by the games organisers were not full fares but nine-day excursion fares.

Because of the need to get swimmers home early for state events he had already booked them on a visit to New Zealand of only seven days. By the time he came to re-book on the nine-day arrangement, he found it necessary' for the time to arrive in New Zealand around 1 a.m. — "a bad time for swimmers” — and to reach Sydney on the return trip around 9 p.m.

This would leave no time for interstate flights, leaving the A.S.U. with a hotel bill

iof more than $2O per, I swimmer. [ I Mr Grange said the total] I cost to the A.S.U. of sending; | its team to the games; i would be around $3500, | I whereas all it had expected] Ito pay was outfitting and | ■ incidentals up to about $5OO. { i “We’ll never go again under such terms.” he said. “You’ve got to remember that this isn’t even a team we have chosen ourselves. New Zealand requested certain swimmers, and our selectors did not actually pick a team. REQUESTED “If a country is paying the full cost, then it is O.K. for them to request certain people. In this case we seem to be paying almost as much as New Zealand, yet quite possibly there are swimmers in the team that wouldn’t be picked by normal selection. “I appreciate that the organisers have financial problems and that corners must be cut, but then we , are facing very heavy expenditure this year, and we may have preferred to spend it in other ways.”

Mr Grange said that the [question of internal air fares ; had never been discussed ; I with New Zealand Games ;i officials because he assumed full air fares included interstate fares at home. Whenever Australian [swimmers had travelled overseas, the air cost of assembling a team had been inbuilt into the total tnp cost paid from overseas. He was sure that the nineday arrangement had never been mentioned before Air New Zealand spoke to hta about it in mid-December, by which time flights were heavily booked and no ideal flights for the Australian swimmers were available. Mr Grange said he had greatly enjoyed the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch last year, he considered the Queen Elizabeth II Park pool to be a magnificent pool, and wished the New Zealand Games organisers well. But he said that while he did not wish to be overcritical, he doubted the A.S.U. would ever commit itself to spending $3500 on the trip had it known about this expense in advance.