Revoked my Swiftees membership ‘cause the game I loved was
changed
And administrators in Victoria were celebrating wild with
joy
Singing we won’t listen to our fans oh boy.
At just after 11AM today, Netball Australia dropped the most fundamental bombshell in Australian women's sporting history with their decision to change the entire principles of the game. Sadly it's not the first time they've made some spectacularly ridiculous changes but this one takes the cake.
Netball isn't a fundamentally complex sport. In fact apart from the rules regarding where certain players can go on court, it can be summarised pretty easily:
7 players on a team
After a goal is scored, the game restarts at the centre circle and each new session of play is alternated between the teams (regardless of who scores the goal)
Goals can only be shot from within the goal circle
Contact is not allowed
You can't run with the ball
You can't bounce the ball
4 quarters of 15 minutes are played
The team with the most goals at the end of regulation time is the winner
Well, until today. In the most bloody-minded move by an Australian sporting administrator this year (and we've had a few), Netball Australia decided to change the entire premise of the game with their introduction of the "Suncorp Super Goal."
The rules state that in the final 5 minutes of each quarter, a magical zone will appear and if you shoot a goal from within it, it's not longer a goal, it's worth 2 points. So the very basic principle of the game: the most goals wins isn't even true anymore. In Australia.
I say in Australia, because in the rest of the world this isn't the case. You see, netball is a global sport played predominantly by women in the Commonwealth. The two biggest tournaments, the Netball World Cup and Commonwealth Games are each played every 4 years. There are a series of international test matches between leading countries every year. The Constellation Cup routinely pulls 40,000+ people for it's 4-test match series between Australia and New Zealand. And when Australia plays in those tournaments, yep, you guessed correctly, the proper rules will apply.
A Unilateral Decision
This decision has been on the cards for a while. In fact at least the last two years, Netball Australia has polled fans on this proposed rule. And comprehensively, time and again they were told no. In fact, so much so that the official competition website carries this article:
A concept that sparked a conversation with more than 14,000 fans and kicked off a healthy debate on the 2-point shot and whether it should be introduced in the Suncorp Super Netball league.
And boy did you make your feelings known. We now know exactly where you stand on the matter and it’s definitely not within the outer edges of the goal circle.
Sure, there were there a couple of you who could see the potential in the two-point shot, believing it could take the game to new heights, but these few were overwhelming outnumbered at the post. In most of your eyes, the 2-point shot, just isn’t an option.
So, let's get it clear. The Fans didn't like it in March when that was published. And it's not like they didn't know what they were talking about. In fact, just days before they were asked they witnessed a charity fundraising match between the Australian National Team (The Diamonds) and a team composed of other players from the competition (The All-Stars) where this was introduced as a gimmick.
In my view, it was some of the scrappiest, least entertaining netball I've ever seen. I've seen 7 years olds play more entertaining netball games. Instead of creative play to create space, the shooters stood on the circle edge and threw the ball in hope. There were hands everywhere and it looked amateurish.
I wasn't the only one:
I don't want to be that person .... but the 2-point shot? I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I HATE IT. With the fire of 1000 suns.
These aren't isolated examples, from players or fans. I don't have the space here, nor the patience to go through every player's twitter but believe me the majority of the players didn't like it either. So the message was clear. DON'T DO IT!
So clear that the league's own website made it clear that they had heard the players and fans: DON"T DO IT!
So lo and behold, 11AM Tuesday 23rd June 2020 rolls around and I was alerted to breaking news from Netball Australia. The Suncorp Super Goal was here to stay. So the know-alls in Netball Australia and it's Suncorp Super Netball Commission decided, unilaterally to bring the rule in. When I say unilaterally, I mean it. Not fans, not even the clubs and players were consulted!
6 weeks out from start of season - zero consultation with any of the players or clubs - knowing that it goes against what the overwhelming majority wanted....@SuperNetball 🤔 https://t.co/4rKlGgTAP6
Imagine the good faith earned in carefully negotiating the significant contractual impacts of COVID-19 on your elite playing group and then turning your back on that group entirely by introducing a significant rule change with no consultation. https://t.co/PRk8qHcmWd
Why have Netball Australia insisted on this change?
Next question. Seriously, nobody knows! There's internet rumours that it's to try and draw in more TV viewers. But really who, that doesn't watch it now, is going to start because for 1/4 of the time certain goals are worth two? Surely nobody is that stupid to believe people will. Nobody I've spoken to today, and trust me my colleagues and family have all heard about it, has said they would start because of that.
The justification on the SSN website is about increasing the so-called "long bomb," but here's the thing. If you make them so common, they will lose what makes them exciting. You fundamentally shift the risk/reward dynamic and instead of a free flowing exciting game, you get the stodgy and scrappy nonsense we saw in the Bushfire Relief match.
Oh, and remember, it's been tried and found wanting.
Why do I care?
Proper stewardship of a sport and an elite competition is about
evolution, not revolution and certainly not destruction which is what
this is.
I care because I like netball. I've liked it since I first played it in Year 3, that's 26 or so years ago. The last couple of years I've been able to attend Swifts games on a regular basis. I love it. I love the atmosphere, and I love the competition that has hitherto been excellent. With my team I've felt the joy of victory, the agony of defeat and the frustration of a draw. We've missed the finals twice in succession and then come through and utterly dominated the competition.
I care because Netball is a great way for young people, especially girls, to keep fit, build friendships and grow passionate. They see their sporting heroes playing the same game they do (well did) and know that with hard work and a passion, there's every chance they could be in the same boat.
I care because everything about this decision is fundamentally wrong. You shouldn't be able to change the fundamental tenets of a sport. Yes you can fiddle around the edges in the way that Big Bash has a bat toss not a coin toss, that Indycar racing awards double points for the Indianapolis 500, that NASCAR doesn't allow a race to finish under a yellow flag or that field hockey changed the penalty shoot-out to resemble ice hockey not soccer. But a sport that has 100 years or so of history has a basic principle of how it works. Proper stewardship of a sport and an elite competition is about evolution, not revolution and certainly not destruction which is what this is.
How much do I care?
I care so much that within 2 and a half hours of this being announced I had already informed the management of the NSW Swifts that I will not be renewing my membership for next season and that if, as originally suggested, reimbursement of membership costs for this coming season is available once the revised schedule is released, I will be requesting that too. It hurts. But I feel on this I have to take a stand. Yes, I'm but one member of the Swifts but at the same time, I wore my jumper around the UK for an entire fortnight after the girls won the premiership last year-a game I got up at 4AM to watch. I feel like I've got some skin in this game and I'm not going to be pushed over lightly.
What can we do?
As far as I can tell there are only two pathways to change, one is massive push back by the state associations who are the constituent members of Netball Australia. Netball NSW, QLD, SA, VIC & WA all have financial skin in the game. If they were consulted, why did this not filter through to their teams? If they did know, why did nobody inform the Lightning and Magpies who are privately held professional sporting teams? Normal members of the state associations can have a say via their clubs. The only option for people who are only members of the team, is to vote with their wallets and eyeballs.
The second is to threaten not to spend your dollars and then actually hold to that pledge unless they back down. You can be guaranteed if there's a massive reduction in income they will change their tune. This is what happened in the 1980s with "New Coke." The Coca-Cola Company thought they knew better than their customers in 1985 and reformulated their product in the USA. It lasted 3 months before they were forced to go back to the original formula. Netball Australia doesn't have the funds to handle 3 months of New Coke so maybe this cautionary tale can be a precautionary tale, maybe wiser heads will prevail. Heaven knows I hope so.
During this year’s Annual General Meeting of Triathlon New South Wales I
asked a series of questions regarding development of multisport competition in
NSW. To be frank, the answers weren't very helpful or the questions weren't really answered to my satisfaction. With the largest population in the country, NSW is the
ideal place. It is our duty to lead from the front and grow the multisport
component of our sport per the first sentence of our own website's about page which says:
Triathlon NSW is the
governing body for Triathlon and Multisport in NSW. Three disciplines
of swimming, cycling and running make up the base format of a
triathlon. Duathlon combines cycling and running, whilst Aquathlon
combines swimming and running.
It is high time that NSW took the lead and developed each of the multi-sport variants to ensure a full and vibrant array of competition is available for members.
Duathlon
Emma Pallant claims 2015 World Duathlon Championship
The run/bike/run format has been around for almost as long
as triathlon. For too many years, at all levels, it has been the red-headed
bastard step-child. Ignored for fifty-one and a half weeks of the year, all of
a sudden it becomes flavour of the month for the ITU when the World
Championships occur, albeit (again) in a half-hearted effort.
Take the recent 2015 ITU Duathlon World Championships as a
case in point. Whilst many, many age-group athletes descended on the biggest
ever duathlon in the Southern Hemisphere very few elite athletes did. Whilst
Emma Pallant was a deserving winner, how would she have gone against, lets say,
Gwen Jorgensen or Non Stanford? And it’s not just the elite athletes giving the
cold shoulder to duathlon. The ITU themselves scheduled a World Cup, in Turkey, against
the race. There was no video, at all, of a World Championship. There wasn’t
even proper live commentary available on the ITU website. In fact the media
work done by the ITU was below that done for most Continental Cup races.
Back home it is no better. In the five years I’ve been in
the sport there has only ever been one official TNSW Duathlon Series. That was
in 2010 and included two races at the Australian
Botanic Gardens in Mount Annan,
two Hills Tri Club Duathlons in Parramatta
Park and a TNSW event
(run for TNSW by Macarthur Triathlon Club) at the Sydney Equestrian Centre. The
latter proved to be a one off event; the former has now died too. Since 2010
this discipline of the sport has pretty much been left to rot.
What can be done?
Triathlon NSW has established a partnership with a race
director to host races on its behalf. To the best of my knowledge this extends
only to triathlon which leaves the door open for other partnerships that could
be formed. More than anything, what NSW needs is a State Championship. It needs
a stand alone, one off event; a big feature that can be a highlight on the
calendar.
At this stage the sport is not in a position to host both a
sprint and a standard distance event. A sensible place to start is with a sprint
duathlon. The 5km run/20km bike/2.5km run is an achievable distance for most
athletes. To make it work the event needs to be guaranteed clear calendar space
and needs to be held in a central location. Realistically it needs to be
somewhere in Sydney.
The June long weekend would be ideal as it allows country clubs the time to be
able to travel down and compete. Local clubs should then be utilised to establish a
billeting system to bring down the external costs for participants from afar.
Further to running a State Championship, TNSW needs to
organise a state series. To cut down on costs, the selected races could contain
up to, (lets say) 6 races selected from club events. This has the effect of
increasing the size of the race crowds for clubs and thus increasing their opportunity
to increase their income.
Aquathlon
2014 Richie Walker Memorial Aquathlon
To my knowledge there are three stand alone Aquathlons on the NSW
calendar for 2015-16, the somewhat expensive race on Bondi
Beach, the Australia Day Aquathon
(sic) in Wollongong
and the Richie Walker Memorial Aquathlon in Cronulla. The latter event this
year doubles as the Australian Championship. There is no state championship,
certainly no state series and very few, if any, club events. With the Aquathlon
World Championship set to become a stand alone event away from the Triathlon
World Championships we now need to give our athletes more opportunities to
race.
I envisage a similar set-up to Duathlon. One stand alone
State Championship and then 5 or 6 club races set aside to form a series. You
could offer these races to different clubs from the duathlon ones to share the
opportunities around.
Hydrothon
The most recent Triathlon New South Wales annual report mentioned the
sanctioning of a ‘hydrothon’ where the cycle is replaced by a surf ski. This
cuts too close to the multisport area that is covered by Surf Life Saving
Australia. Given our need for a close relationship with SLSA and their clubs
for our water coverage in triathlon races this is a case of cutting off your
nose to spite your face.
Aquabike
This race, a swim/cycle without the run has been tried a few
times and has failed to take off. File it in the maybe one day category.
Long Distance Duathlon
2013 ITU Long Distance Duathlon World Championship
There is a multitude of long distance triathlon events in
NSW (Ironman Australia,
Ironman 70.3 Port Macquarie and Penrith, Husky Long Course, Challenge Forster
and Batemans Bay etc)
but there is no event on our schedule for these athletes in winter. There is
however a long course duathlon world championship. Why can’t NSW organise the
first ever long course duathlon in Australia? It will take a hardy
group of athletes and may remain a niche event but you won't know unless you try. If after market research it doesn't appear to be a huge event, the first time could
be run alongside one of the early season long course events like Challenge
Forster to minimise event costs.
Cross Triathlon
The 2016 World Championship at Lake Crackenback
offers up a great opportunity to really push forward this area of the sport. It
doesn’t need to be huge but a 3 race season with at least one in the Sydney basin would be a
good sized attempt to maintain the growth. The one off XTERRA Asia-Pacific
Championship never really got the support it needed. TNSW needs to actively
support this to make it happen and should again attempt to engage XTERRA in a
NSW based race. If done successfully this could be a race to get athletes to the
official ITU Cross Triathlon World Championship and also to the XTERRA ‘World
Championship’ in Maui.
Winter Triathlon
Although this is a niche internationally, it is still a part
of the sport’s remit and could potentially become a Winter Olympic sport one
day. It would not be impossible to set up a cross country ski/mountain bike/cross country run course in New South Wales or Victoria; they're the only
places that can guarantee the snow required for such an event. If scheduled alongside one of the major events up in the high country during the snow
season there is the potential for a successful event to be held. This really
only needs to be a one off event each year. It could potentially be another
revenue stream if Triathlon Australia
was to select a team for the World Championships based off of it.
Conclusion
There are no shortage of races on offer in New South Wales. The continued prevalence of
local club races allows for a strong base and the average club’s commitment to
this through both triathlon and duathlon is commendable. To continue to grow
the multisport components Triathlon NSW needs to continue to support and
provide development opportunities in the other multisport arenas. There needs
to be a clearly indicated State Championship at each event and there is
potential for a multisport athlete of the year award to be introduced for the
most successful athlete across all disciplines.
It is entirely doable and with Triathlon New South Wales no longer
doing their own events, there is time and man power. Lets make it happen.
Triathlon has been bumbling along in Australia for
the best part of 30 years. In that 30 years Australian athletes have won:
19
Triathlon World Championships
4
ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Championships
8
Duathlon World Championships
2
Aquathlon World Championships
10
Ironman World Championships
5
Ironman 70.3 World Championships
1
Gold, 2 Silver and 1 Bronze Olympic Medals
Yet…unless you’ve reached peak triathlon geek (like I have)
I doubt you knew that.
How about I run some names past you…Greg Welch, Michellie
Jones, Emma Carney, Miles Stewart, Natalie Van
Coevorden, Peter Robertson, Emma Snowsill, Emma Moffatt, Emma
Jackson, Erin Densham, Loretta Harrop, Craig Alexander, Ashleigh Gentle, Aaron
Royle, Felicity Abram, Liz Blatchford, Melissa Hauschildt, Pete Jacobs.
Let's make triathlon take-off...literally
Again unless you’re a triathlete you won’t know anything
about the majority of them. You may have heard the names of some of the others
in the mid to late 1990s but believe it or not every one of them has at a minimum
a World Cup podium to their name; most of them are World Champions, some even
have Olympic medals!
From that simple experiment we can reach a worrying conclusion…triathlon
is pretty much invisible. Yes invisible and yet in 2013-14 more than 180,000
race starts were made by across the country by 20,500 registered athletes and
many one-day license holders. How do we harness the power in those numbers for
the good of the sport? How do we grow triathlon?
What is triathlon and what sort of people are triathletes?
If you ask the Collins English Dictionary the definition of
triathlon reads:
Yet if you ask any competitor it’s more than that. I
conducted a quick social media survey the other day and I received a variety of
answers:
“I actually see it as one event containing three
disciplines” –An accountant
“The chance to race, working in a team to compete a
mission that includes being tethered and tortured together, lasting about an
hour and 20 minutes. When the triathlon is over the team crosses the line
for their victory banana! I say to myself why the hell did I participate
in that pain? I have a yack then enter into another one” –A para-triathlete
“Great memories, great pics, great people and it's my
babies sport so I just love it!!” – A triathlon mum
and international competitor
“It's sport reflecting life. It can give all the joy
in the world and can quickly and cruelly cut you down to size. It teaches
you discipline, commitment and respect. You meet all sorts of people. It
just happens in a shorter time period and you get to relive it time and
again.” –Long Course international competitor
“It's the epitome of the agony and ecstasy, madness
and insanity meeting clarity and exhilaration. It’s family spirit
developing from the most eclectic bunch of individuals and an opportunity
to continually challenge your limitations and grow and develop as an
individual and part of a team... I may not race, but I love it”
–Triathlon Mum
“Family, Friends and finish lines! There’s no better
feeling than running up Finish Shute at Port Macquarie Ironman. When
you hit the wall at 32kms on the run, friends and family racing against
you and supporting you cheer you all the way across the line!! bring
on the 3rd of May 2015” –Ironman
competitor
“triathlon. n. Event for people who don't realise
that one sport is hard enough” –Short course
competitor.
And what about those competitors; who are they? In short
triathletes represent probably the most diverse range of people competing in
any sport in the country. They come from the city and the bush, the lower
socio-economic areas to the wealthiest regions, from 5 years olds to 90 year
olds, from brickies to pilots and nurses and doctors and everything in between.
They come in all body shapes, have all manner of abilities and have, apart from
a penchant for lycra, a shared love of a challenging sport.
In effect what we have is a mass participation sport with
little to no public penetration. It’s invisible in the media and whilst
everyone knows somebody who does triathlon few know what that actually entails.
It starts local
Grassroots sport. In NSW the sport is built around local not
for profit clubs. They are the untapped resource to promote the sport. They
hold their own local races (perfect opportunities to get acquainted with the
sport for cheap), they train together, they provide a support network and they
develop cross generational, cross gender and cross ethnic friendships.
I’ll talk about the NSW Club model in another post but I
want to focus here on how at a grassroots level clubs can generate their own
publicity.
Have a dedicated Publicity Officer
I believe every club should have a publicity officer. They
don’t need to be Max Markson but they do need to have several skills. They must
have a nose for a good story, they must have good story telling and writing
skills and they need to be willing to put significant effort in. More
importantly they need to be knowledgeable about the sport, approachable,
contactable, convincing and aware of what’s going on in the club. It’s a very
good idea for them to be on the committee too so that they can be fully abreast
of your club situation.
A photo posted by Macarthur Triathlon Club (@macarthurtriclub) on
When was the last time you read something about triathlon in
your local paper? Oh you didn’t? Why was that? Simply it’s because you didn’t
put it there. Local newspapers are always looking for good stories to tell and
you can fill their pages. Did you have a club race? Good…write a media release
telling how many people came. Emphasise the number of children who competed. If
you’ve got a particularly strong women’s programme, tell that story. Did you
compete at the Club Championship? Write about the team work, it doesn’t have to
be results success to be newsworthy.
If it seems easy that’s because it is. When I took over the
Publicity Officer role for Macarthur Triathlon Club in 2010 I had a blank
canvas. The first thing I did was ring the local newspapers and talk to the
sports editors. I spoke to them and let them know who I was and a bit about the
club. Once that initial connection had been made I put their direct email
adresses on my media release list.
How do I know this? I made a success of it by trial and
error. During 2013 I had 10 separate articles published by the Macarthur
Advertiser plus a couple in the Macarthur Chronicle. This year I’ve run a few
less stories but the past two weeks have seen Macarthur Triathlon Club featured
twice in the Advertiser in two weeks in stories the newspaper journalists
chased down themselves.
I can’t promise you that every story will get a run. It’s
quite possible that your story may not be interesting enough or may get buried.
The more time you spend doing it however, the quicker you’ll ascertain the
times to avoid in your local community. As a general rule give football finals
a wide berth and avoid Olympics or Commonwealth Games periods unless you have
an athlete from your club competing in either. If you persist at it long enough
you will get to the enviable situation where the local journalists start to
come to you for stories. This is not the time to get complacent though, this is
the time to build on your success.
Finally, if you have a photographer who comes along, ask
them to help you. Media Releases are generally easier to sell with quality
photos attached.
A photo posted by Macarthur Triathlon Club (@macarthurtriclub) on
Social Media-are you social?
In the digital age social media is a major selling point for
any organisation. I manage social media for Macarthur Triathlon Club across
facebook, twitter and instagram. There are many methods of doing this; one
colleague I spoke to in Queensland
said that she posts different things for different days, e.g. random
motivational stuff on Mondays. I don’t have a rigid technique to how I post on
the club’s social media accounts but I do have some rules:
Don’t
bombard daily. Occasionally you may need to post multiple things on a day,
don’t do it on consecutive days.
Pictures
stand out when people scroll through timelines. Use pictures where you can
to make a point. Get your club members to send you photos and use them. Letting
Instagram post to your facebook wall and twitter account kills three birds
with one stone!
Do
tag people where appropriate, especially frequent social media sharers and
any elite/professional athletes you have in your club. I don’t allow a
free for all on tagging to avoid potential cyber bullying.
Keep
it professional; avoid using colloquialisms, nicknames or anything
slightly controversial. You do not want to appear cliquey.
Rope
in your most vocal social media users to comment, like and share. This
ensures your message gets out. If you have one or two, others will follow.
Keep
internal documents, emails and race reports internal!
Do
share appropriate things from Triathlon Australia and your State/Territory
Triathlon Association (STTA). Don’t share everything; most people who
‘like’ your club will probably have seen it anyway.
When
people go away to race encourage them to send your social media admin
photos, quotes and stories. These help to personalise your club and share
the adventure amongst friends.
When
people compete at World Championships follow their entire journey. Update
their results, get in touch and get photos. Scour official social media to
see if they pop up anywhere because World Championships are amazing events
and you should share success.
Develop a two way relationship with your elite athlete
I have a separate blog post to come soon about how you
should develop relationships with elite athletes but I’ll save that. Suffice to
say, keep them close. Invite them to events. Write about their achievements in
your media releases and on your social media. They can do as much for you as
you can for them and writing about them often gets that initial foot in the door
with the local media.
Keep friendly
The club’s committee needs to be personable and on the
ground at club functions. Go out of your way to welcome new people; don’t leave
them on the sideline. Follow up all electronic enquiries as soon as possible
and ensure everyone knows what’s happening in your club. And, most importantly,
hide your animosity. Nobody likes a grump so keep it to yourself and deal with
grievances in private-well away from anybody else and well away from your
social media!
Each state must pull its weight.
Beyond the local level there needs to be support from the
STTAs. One of the fundamental tasks of the state association is to promote the
sport as well as sanction events. Combine a diverse events calendar with a
handful of friendly journalists and you can generate significant media exposure
at little cost. The key to this though is having marketable events.
Building a network of friendly journalists
When the STTA organises an event it is their responsibility
to organise and maximise the media exposure they can generate. This goes beyond
a post race media release, this requires the STTA (which has paid employees) to
be proactive. Talk to the sports editor at your capital city daily papers,
specifically invite them along. Do the same with the television news. You may
not succeed but it’s worth the try. Talk to the clubs in the local region of
the race to find out who to contact in local media. If nothing else,
comprehensive coverage in local media is some exposure for the sport.
On event day have a dedicated, friendly, knowledgeable and
patient person to look after the media. That person must realise that the media
probably doesn’t know anything about triathlon so explain the sport
simply-always talk about the no crawling rule because it always gets a giggle.
Take the media all around the race course and explain some of the challenges of
each leg and transition. If you can, stick them on the back of a marshal’s
motorbike so they get an idea how fast athletes are actually moving. Line up a
cross section of competitors and make sure these people are introduced to the
media to show the diversity of what it is you’re trying to sell.
Create stand alone State Championships
Each state should have stand alone state championships over
Sprint, Olympic and Long Course as well as in Aquathlon and Duathlon. These
races should not count toward any series points and should be independent.
These races should be the focus of the state calendar and sanctioning should be
refused for any other races on the appropriate weekends (including club races)
The aim of these events should be to capture as much of the
competing population as possible so the same event should be scheduled for the
same day in each state as happens with all the European countries and their
national cycling championships. The events should also happen toward the end of
the season so that elite athletes are in the country and in preparation before
their international season. Combined with a requirement in high performance
contracts to compete if the athlete wishes to be selected for any Australian
team this will help bring star power.
Promoting Elite Athletes
This is not just the job of Triathlon Australia. Each
STTA has a junior development programme and most states have at least one elite
athlete supported by their State Institute of Sport or the National Talent
Academy. What these
athletes do matters. The STTA should be promoting these athletes in regular
media releases to both the state-wide and the local press. The latter then
reinforces the effort made by clubs.
National level
Triathlon Australia
has under CEO Anne Gripper made significant improvements to its public image
but still needs to do more and as the national federation there is plenty they should
do. There was a time in the late 1990s when Triathlon was a major televised
sport with a fast paced sprint series across the Eastern ‘J Curve’ sponsored by
companies like St George and Kia. Regaining this sort of coverage should be a
major aim for the organisation.
One of the unique aspects of our sport is the integration of
events into the World Championship. The Triathlon World Championship is the
only sporting event in the world where elite athletes, developing elites
(juniors/under 23s), elite athletes with a disability and the world’s best
amateur able bodied and disabled athletes compete for their respective title at
the same time in the same place. Having been to the last three I’ve seen how
special it makes the atmosphere, a team environment where elite athletes are as
interested in your racing as you are in theirs! This is an idea we can hijack
to our advantage in our national championships.
Each year we crown Australian champions, age-group and
elite, in Aquathlon, Sprint Triathlon, Triathlon, Long Course Triathlon, Cross
Triathlon and Duathlon. Do you know who any of the current champions are? I can
tell you that Gillian Backhouse is the reigning champion in both draft legal
triathlon distances and Jaz Hedgeland the junior champion but I haven’t got a
clue who the others are. If I don’t know, how the hell is anybody else going to
know?
One of the reasons is that the Australian championships are
invisible! Did you know that the Australian Sprint Championship was buried in
the midst of the Gatorade Series in Melbourne
last season? The Olympic Distance championship was buried in the Oceania
Championship in Devonport. This obviously doesn’t work so I have a plan based
on my aforementioned suggestion for state championships.
Making National Championships the jewel in the crown
I believe that the best way to publicise our sport is to
completely re-jig the way we run our National Championships. We need to capture
a bit of that World Championship spirit, i.e. we need to bring all the areas of
our sport together. We need our elite athletes, our para-triathletes and our age-groupers
of all abilities together because there’s strength in numbers.
What follow is my suggestion based around the Australian
Sprint Distance Triathlon Championship:
7:30-12:00
Open Para/Age-Group Sprint Triathlon Championship
12:15
Elite & Junior Women Sprint Triathlon Championship
13:30
Elite Para-Triathlon Championship
15:30
Elite & Junior Men Sprint Triathlon Championship
12:00-17:00
Live TV Coverage
Introduction,
sport explanation, course description
Women’s
race live
Age-Group
highlights including naming all Age-Group champions
Para-triathlon,
slight delay
Men’s
race live
Podiums
and wrap up.
Compulsory
elite license holder participation for selection in World Cup, World
Championship, World Series races (with an extenuating circumstances
policy)
Elite
athletes to race in state colours with ITU compliant race suits with state
code replacing AUS. Age-Group athletes encouraged to race in club suits.
Elite athletes encouraged to wear club logo somewhere on their uniform.
Championship
race to be a stand alone event.
Guaranteed
World Championship selection for top 5 in all age-groups.
No
clashing races anywhere in the country on the weekend of a National
Championship
Share our pool of athletes
Many triathletes train with swim squads (MSA or SA), some
race with Cycling Australia and others spend their spare income on athletics.
Yet for many athletes with a love of several sports cost simply prevents them
from getting involved with more than one. Triathlon Australia needs to have an
arrangement with Athletics Australia, Little Athletics, Swimming Australia,
Masters Swimming Australia and Cycling Australia for significant membership
discounting. This works both ways-it provides an incentive to keep Triathlon Australia
members because it reduces costs and the need to choose between sports and it
also helps to provide a low cost opportunity to bring more athletes across to
triathlon.
Continued integration of Para-triathlon
The way para-triathlon has been integrated into our sport is
surpassing any global standard in para-sport. The fact that triathlon has
evolved to have two levels, elite and open is something unheard of in most
para-sport but there is more work to do.
There exists a little bit of tension between elite and open
para-triathletes (this can be seen on social media). Triathlon Australia needs
to ensure that everyone understands open para-triathlon athletes are
age-groupers who happen to have a disability. Further to rectify this problem a
transparent pathways to elite document needs to be published to allow
open/age-group athletes a clear understanding of what the minimum criteria are
for elite selection.
There remains (as in cycling) a problem with finding
suitable guides for PT5 (vision impaired) athletes. Triathlon Australia needs to develop a pool
of suitable guides and train them appropriately for elite competition and also
ensure that there is a list of people willing to guide open competitors too.
Triathlon Australia
needs to work with clubs to help them understand para-triathlon. Clubs need to
be educated in how to work with disabled athletes and how to adapt their race
procedures to suit these club members. I recommend a register of ‘Centre of
Excellence’ clubs be developed for para-triathlon to give interested people a
good place to start from. (A similar idea for junior athletes wouldn’t go
astray either).
Finally, Triathlon Australia needs to develop a
culture welcoming of ‘les autres’ athletes. There are many disabled people who
would like to race triathlon but do not fit into one of the modified categories
established in 2013. Obviously these athletes will be ineligible to compete
internationally but there is nothing stopping Australia introducing a PT6 ‘les
Autres’ category to domestic racing to allow those other willing participants
an opportunity.
Renewing our approach to the relay
Like it or loathe it (and I’m headed more toward the latter
than the former) the ITU is committed to the 4x Mixed Relay. As a Commonwealth
Games event it has medals on the line and is therefore a part of the mix when
it comes to medal performance funding from the Australian Sports Commission. The
Australian teams have not finished in the World Championship medals since 2009
and with the strength of triathlon in Canada, England, Wales, New Zealand &
South Africa there is no way we can guarantee a Commonwealth Games medal in
current form either. If it’s an event we need to raise its profile.
My solution to this problem is three fold.
Develop
a programme that in pre-event camps can be utilised to get the team used
to working together. Swimming and Athletics race relays all the time and
there’s a lot that can be learnt from their training methods.
Consider
training a few super sprint athletes focussed on the relay distance and
using them in major competitions.
Introduce
the 4x Mixed Relay to national, state and club events. By introducing an
age requirement it would be easy to make this into an event that could be
conducted alongside the state and national sprint championships. Alongside
the existing gender rules I suggest adding an age rule, i.e. that you must
have one athlete <25, one athlete 26-39, one athlete 40-54 and one
athlete 55+ in each team. There would be very few clubs in Australia
that would not be able to field a team for a race of this nature.
I’m exceptionally proud of the junior programme within
Macarthur Triathlon Club. Thanks to the dedication of Juniors coach Guy Creber
we now have a three tiered programme, the introductory TRYStars programme, the
regular MacTri Juniors and the South West Sydney Academy of Sport programme for
our high performance athletes. It is without a doubt one of the most
comprehensive junior programmes in the country and it’s paying off; more than
50% of our club membership is under 18 years of age.
The push to develop similar programmes needs to come from
above to spread this kind of junior outreach. The expansion of regional
academies as a part of the ASC Winning Edge programme is a good start but the
sport also needs to entice kids who aren’t going to win. Why do we have so many
kids competing in Weet-Bix Tryathlons, Ironkids and the like yet not have that
many involved in clubs? Where do they come from and where do they disappear to?
Most of this blog has been about image issues or the
distinct lack of public knowledge about the sport. This is not the only reason that
junior numbers don’t grow. There are clubs (I could name several in Sydney, but I won’t) who
for various reasons choose not to support juniors. I find this daft because
today’s juniors are tomorrow’s seniors. Catering for kids is not hard and to
Triathlon Australia’s
credit the TRYstars programme is a good start. But it needs to go further.
There are junior triathlon events run by several
organisations (Weet-Bix, Elite Energy, Ironman Asia Pacific) across this
country that have little to no integration with the rest of the sport yet these
are the same juniors that are targeted by TRYStars. Triathlon Australia needs
to target specific clubs with capacity to run a TRYstars programme locally in
the lead-up to these events, especially in areas where clubs don’t run local
racing for juniors to make a start. Further I believe Triathlon Australia needs
to find a way to reduce the price of the TRYStars programme, even if it means a
slightly garish corporate sponsorship. If Little Athletics can pick up Jetstar
why can’t Triathlon Australia
pick up Virgin Australia as a junior athlete partner?
Under the National
Talent Academy
and other high performance programmes we often hear about athletes stolen from
other sports. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they don’t. This is all very
well and good but when was the last time a high performance coach went talent
scouting in a triathlon club? I’ve been involved in Macarthur Triathlon Club
for 4 and a half years and I’m yet to see one and that’s despite the fact that our
club gave the world Erin Densham, Keira Pride and Natalie
Van Coevorden! Stealing athletes from other sports with
promises of gold medals and the like also sells our sport short. The attitude “we’ll
teach you how to ride a bike and then you’ll swim and run to gold” is factually
incorrect. No athlete can compete successfully in this day and age if they’re
not the complete package in short course racing which is where our high
performance funding is targeted.
Finally it was suggested at the 2014 Triathlon Australia
National Conference by TNSW board member Glenn Schwarzel that Triathlon
Australia should seek to get Tier 1 recognition for triathlon in the school
sporting programme. I have nothing else to add to that except bravo, do it now!
Chasing Corporate Dollars
A better marketed sport with more media exposure will
provide opportunities for greater sponsor involvement. Triathletes, as a rule,
are one of the wealthiest sporting constituencies in the country. This is
fertile ground yet where is the sponsorship? 20 years ago we had companies
climbing on top of each other to be involved yet in 2014 we have a small
(although high quality) clothing provider, a bike insurer, a suitcase company
and pretty much nobody else apart from the Australian Sports Commission. This
really isn’t good enough and the TA team really need to chase some significant
blue chip money. When niche sports like Volleyball can take in huge amounts of
sponsorship from private companies like Hancock Prospecting you have to ask,
where are we going wrong?
Recognise Age-Group athletes in all events
Triathlon Australia’s
social media tends to skew toward two areas, elite ITU competition and long
course racing. The former is completely natural as that is where the majority
of funding for TA comes from and is where sporting glory comes in the form of
World Championships, Commonwealth Games, Paralympic Games & Olympic Games.
Long Course racing is too, by its sheer duration, a naturally impressive
spectacle. But this strategy neglects the fact that many athletes are not in it
to race elite or win Ironman. For many athletes an enticer race is a
significant achievement. I have a saying in our club publications, “to me your
significant race is as important as theirs.” In our club newsletter I want to
tell everyone’s story be they doing an Ironman, a club race, their first ever
outside event or the World Championship. Triathlon Australia’s social media should
reflect that too and TA staff should be just as visible at Noosa as at
Coomealla or Busselton. All athletes need to be recognised.
Make the Annual Awards Dinner affordable!
The Triathlon Australia Annual Awards Dinner looks to be a
magnificent and enjoyable evening. I say looks because I’ve never been
fortunate to attend. I’m never going to win a national or world championship so
I’m never going to be invited yet I’d like to go. Every year I think it would
be good and then I see the price and I just about have a heart attack. Yes many
people in our sport are wealthy but many of us do it on a shoe string too and I
think it’s only fair the rest of us get the opportunity to attend too!
If you’re going to do compulsory membership, go the whole hog
One of the adverse effects of compulsory membership was a
loss of club members who only otherwise raced Ironman events or similar once a
year events. If you want to make people join, make one day licenses
prohibitively expensive for Ironman races…$250 should do it.
Reward National Champions
A National Champion
Trisuit idea
Regardless of whether my proposal for national championships
takes off I feel that National Champions deserve to be recognised. Just as a
cyclists gets to wear the national champion’s jersey, triathletes should be
entitled to a national champion’s trisuit. I haven’t got a specific design in
mind but I feel that elite and age-group athletes should get special
recognition for the 12 months in which they are the reigning champion. Surely
as a part of the uniform deal with Scody our Australian Champions should
receive a custom made tri-suit (complete with name and country) in the (to be
determined) national champion’s colours with the athlete’s choice of front zip,
back zip or two piece suits.
Thirty years old and still going
Triathlon is a magical sport. I absolutely adore it. I’ve
met amazing people, had amazing experiences, made amazing friends, been
selected to represent my country at three World Championships and been treated
like royalty by athletes of a much greater calibre than I. I consider myself
incredibly blessed. I found the right club, the right people, the right environment.
I found a sport unique, growing and yet with untapped potential.
If you got this far, full marks to you! I don’t purport to
have all the answers but I do have quite a few ideas. If this blog can become a
starting point for a conversation then I have achieved my goal. A modified
version is being sent to the CEO and President of both Triathlon Australia and
Triathlon NSW and I hope we can make something of this!
There’s no doubting Australian Cycling is on an upward
surge. This year’s Road Nationals are a case in point: record crowds, good tv
ratings, significant social media activation and loaded fields. But Cycling
Australia must not rest on their laurels; as one of the premier Olympic sports
and the second highest Australian Sports Commission funded NSO (after swimming)[1]
Cycling Australia needs to embrace the whole of their mantra. As the NSO they
are responsible for the whole of the sport, not just the Elite Men that
seemingly are their focus.
Are Elite Men the sole focus?
You certainly could be forgiven for thinking that Cycling
Australia is only interested in the Elite Men’s competition. One cursory glance
at the last two Road Nationals television broadcasts would certainly imply
that. In fact you could be forgiven for thinking that women didn’t ride
bicycles.
Clearly the sport is more than that. In fact Cycling
Australia is responsible for the sanctioning of BMX, Mountain Bike and
Cyclo-Cross as well as Road and Track. Cycling Australia says as much in their own
blurb:
Cycling Australia (CA) is the national administrative body responsible for
the sport of cycling in Australia
as recognised by the Australian Government, the International Cycling Union
(UCI), the Australian Olympic Committee, the Australian Commonwealth Games
Federation and the Australian Paralympic Committee. As an organisation our objectives are to
create opportunities for all riders and people interested in cycling.
We also deliver high performance programs that produce world class
riders across all disciplines. We offer membership benefits to all
cyclists - recreational riders through to competitive racers and importantly
we are advocates for improving cycling within Australia.”[2]
At no point does it say ‘men only’ yet you could be forgiven
for thinking that was the case. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of
examples where this has been demonstrated to not be true; Caroline Buchanan
winning pretty much everything at the 2013 Oppys proves that. But to only
televise the elite men at your biggest event of the year makes a major point
whether intentional or otherwise.
Equality at the Road Nationals
Elite Women
Gracie Elvin going back to back in a massive sprint against Lauren Kitchen. The best race of the weekend and not on tv
For the Road Nationals to really be an equal playing field
there must be live coverage of the women’s road race as there is the men’s. The
SBS coverage of the men’s race this year was a straight time buy as SBS pretty
much confirmed themselves:
“Thomas, to be clear, it is the responsibility of Cycling
Australia, not SBS, they are the rights holder but are cash strapped in terms
of paying for additional broadcasts.”[3]
What does this mean? It means that Cycling Australia paid
SBS to cover the Elite Men’s road race but not the women’s! In 2014 how is this
acceptable? At least 13 women racing on international teams took to the start
line. This wasn’t some second string domestic field. It was full of
professional and semi-professional athletes doing their utmost and pushing as
hard as they could in front of their biggest domestic audience.
Nobody can claim lack of interest either. I’ve never seen so
much anger and frustration online at the complete lack of information
available. Without even a web stream it was left to cycling fans by the side of
the road giving twitter updates in the biggest race of the year. Thanks to
Kelvin (@crazycyclefan) for tweets like this because without him there would have been pretty much
nothing available.
Attack Spratty has 22 seconds. Mullens Kitchen Garfoot Hogan still in the bunch — Kelvin (@crazycyclefan) January 11, 2014
Essentially Cycling Australia chose to ignore the women
completely. I know that Cycling Australia is in dire financial straits but this
is no excuse. For an organisation that is tasked with representing and growing
the sport to snub such a large percentage of their clientele is disgraceful. If
it was a straight time buy then two hours of highlights of each road race would
have been a better deal. The men’s race was interminably boring until the last
two laps anyway!
Para-Cycling
Para-Cycling is one of the most successful areas of the
sport ever undertaken by Australians. At the 2013 UCI Para-Cycling Road World
Championships, the following athletes stood on the podium:
Michael
Gallagher C5 Road
Race Champion
Alistair
Donohoe C5 Road
Race Bronze, C5 ITT Bronze
David
Nicholas C3 ITT Champion
Nigel
Barley H3 ITT Bronze
Jayme
Richardson C1 Road
Race Champion, C1 ITT Champion
Simone
Kennedy C3 Road
Race Silver, C3 ITT Silver
Susan
Powell C4 Road
Race Bronze, C4 ITT Silver
Bianca
Woolford T1 Road
Race Silver, T2 ITT Silver
Carol
Cooke T2 Road
Race Champion, T2 ITT Champion
B Road Race, Para-Cycling Nationals 2013
Para-Cycling is conducted over both road and track yet on
both occasions their national championships are relegated to irrelevance in a
place and time out of sync with any other event. In 2013 the event was held in
the middle of rural Victoria
in April with an audience of zero (I don’t count myself because I marshalled on
the course). Given the amount of world class athletes involved, many on SIS
scholarships, it isn’t fair for these athletes who struggle to get attention at
the best of times.
H Road Race, 2013 Para-Cycling Nationals
There is ample opportunity in Road Nationals week to ensure
Para-Cycling is involved and the athletes given ample opportunity to shine on
the big stage. Cycling Australia
took over responsibility for Para-Cycling from the Australian Paralympic
Committee many years ago. It’s time to take that commitment seriously.
Under 23 Women
Emily Roper not wearing an Australian Jersey
The UCI doesn’t recognise an Under 23 category at World
level but Cycling Australia (to their credit) do so in the national championships.
Although not conducted as separate events, awards ceremonies are conducted but
there’s a degree of inequality in this too. All national champions at the road
nationals are awarded national jerseys except the Under 23 Women. I’ve not been
able to get a straight answer out of anybody as to why this is the case. The
closest I’ve come to is that the winner doesn’t get a jersey because there is
no international race for them to wear it in. If that is the reason it’s
ridiculous; even if there is no where that the jersey can be worn that doesn’t
mean the winner shouldn’t get the same plaudits! If it’s good enough for the
U23 Men, it’s good enough for the U23 Women.
Giving Everyone a Chance
For as long as anybody can remember the Road Nationals have
been held in and around Ballarat. Whilst Ballarat and the Buninyong might be a
good circuit to race on, it’s far from the only place in Australia
capable of hosting the Road Nationals. It’s not only the spectators getting
sick of the course. Sprinter Chloe Hosking has made it abundantly clear what
she thinks of going to the same place every year:
Gotta say, growing tired of the course. If I didnt have to enter to be eligible for Australian national teams I wouldn't bother entering. — Chloe Hosking (@chloe_hosking) January 11, 2014
Frankly she has a point. Not only is the race predictable it
means only one sort of rider can ever win. If you look at best practise around
the world, championships are moved continuously and the course types change to
give everyone a chance; sprinters, climbers, classics riders etc. If the
Nationals is to continue to grow everyone deserves a chance. It’s time to move
the event around. I don’t care if it’s on a rotation basis between the states
or goes to a bidding process but I feel the event needs growth that only a
literal change in scenery can provide.
Embracing all racing
2013 UCI Road World Championship-Women's TTT
The road nationals currently encapsulate every road racing
discipline except the Team Time Trial. I’d like to see a state vs state Team
Time Trial. Realistically there could be seven teams competing in elite men and
elite women’s competition in what could be a super exciting event and a
positive addition to the week.
Scheduling my suggestions
As the road nationals currently stand it is in fact really
easy to fit in my suggested changes and give all athletes the credit they
deserve: If the free day on Friday is utilised for the Para-Cycling it all fits
perfectly:
Wednesday:
All ITT events.
Thursday
(morning): State teams TTT
Thursday
(evening): All Criterium events
Friday
(morning): Handcycle and Trike Road Races
Friday
(afternoon): C1-5 and B Road Races
Saturday
(morning): Men’s U23 Road Race
Saturday
(afternoon): Women’s Road Race
Sunday
(morning): Men’s Road Race.
Conclusion
The Road Nationals are the biggest domestic cycling event of
the year and consistently draw in some of the largest cycling crowds in Australia. If
the sport is to truly develop and recognise all elements of road racing at its
nationals, Cycling Australia needs to promote all of it on the biggest platform
of the year. In 2015 the governing body must do this; it’s their job after all!
There are no excuses. Let’s hope the new President with his vested interest in
women’s cycling (a small matter of owning the Orica-GreenEDGE-AIS) can force
through such an agenda.
