Qualifying times for swimming far too lenient

Press, 11 February 1981, Page 38

Qualifying times for swimming far too lenient

By

KEVIN TUTTY

A record entry for the New Zealand swimming championships in Rotorua from February 25 to 28, has a topical message for swimming administrators and the national swimming selectors: the qualifying times are absurdly lenient. Since the Nev/ Zealand Games New Zealand has lost its top two women breaststroke swimmers, Rickie Binning and Deirdre Walls to Australia, and the departure of Paul Rowe to the same country is an even odds bet. The reason for the departure of Walls and Rowe .is a lack of hard competition in New Zealand, and as long as lenient qualifying times are retained for the national championships New Zealand swimming will not improve. In virtually every event the qualifying times for this .year’s nationals are well outside the national record, and in many instances these records in turn are far away from world rankings or times that could be expected to v/in Commonwealth Games medals. It must be said, though, that the fault does not lie entirely with the national selectors. They submit qualifying times to the annual meeting of the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association and if associations consider too many swimmers will be chopped out of the nationals if the times are tightened they vote no, or for a small, change. The record entry of 596 for this year’s nationals is no surprise when times are considered. To earn a place in the top 25 in the world rankings for the men’s 100 m freestyle last year a time of 51.68 s was required. The qualifying time for the national cham-

pionships is one minute flat Any freestyler worthy of the sprinters label should be able to return not less than 58.05. The Swedish team at the New Zealand Games two weeks ago had five swimmers. All were capable of a sub-53.0s 100 m freestyle, and two were backstroke specialists. If the N.Z.A.S.A. wants to improve the standard of swimming, a savage assault on the qualifying times is needed next year. It will be too late to have any effect on the number of New Zealanders available for the , Brisbane Commonwealth Games team, but should improve the sport’s strength in the next few years. A drastic tightening of the nationals entries will have two effects. It will cut down entries which will mean less heats and shorter morning sessions at the championships. In recent years some sessions have stretched to three and a half hours — too long for competitive swimmers. The greatest advantage though is that swimmers who have previously qualified, will have to try harder. In probably eight cases out of 10 they will make it, thus providing fields v/ith less distance between the first and last swimmer. The most ludicrous qualifying time this year is the men’s 400 m freestyle. It was 4min 38.05. The New Zealand record is 4min 00.3 s and the world record 3min 50.495. When Vladimir Salnikov, of Russia, broke the 15 minute barrier for the 1500 m freestyle at the Moscow Olympics he covered the first 400 m in a time several seconds faster than the best New Zealander can presently produce for a straight 400 m swim.