Angst builds as pivotal cycling review nears publication
PLUS: The Week That Was and the Weekend That Will Be
(Warning: this week’s newsletter contains references to suicide and suicide ideation that some readers might find distressing.)
Next month should be a line-in-the-sand moment for high-performance sport in New Zealand with the impending release of the independent inquiry into the culture of Cycling New Zealand in the wake of the tragic death of Olivia Podmore.
Already there is concern within cycling and high-performance sport circles that the line will end up being fudged and blurred beyond usefulness or, worse, used to consolidate power among the hands of a few at Sport New Zealand.
It is understood that the report has been in draft form for a couple of months and various stakeholders have been supplying feedback and notes.
While the catalyst for this review was Podmore’s suspected suicide, it is in effect a referendum into the funding and centralisation of high-performance sports programmes.
The terms of reference made explicit the review will not deal with the individual complaints of athletes but will investigate how adequately the recommendations of the Heron Review (2018) into cycling were implemented; how effective High Performance Sport New Zealand’s funding and engagement has been; and how effective the centralisation aspects of high-performance sport are.
Multiple sources have told The Bounce that there is much trepidation around the release of the report, including fears it won’t be made fully available to the public on the grounds of “privacy” and that it will instead be similar to what happened to the Dew Review that looked into Hockey New Zealand.
The decision to release the Dew Review as a summary of findings went down horribly with many of the athletes, who felt cheated by the process and believe their concerns were secondary to the protection of those at the top of the pyramid.
There are also broader fears about how this latest review might be used by Sport New Zealand and HPSNZ to promote individual agendas.
A recent restructure and an unusually high staff turnover has created uncertainty and no shortage of angst at HPSNZ. One source said everybody was looking over their shoulders and that recent appointments had raised eyebrows.
The mood seems to be that of a paradox: never has a review been so highly anticipated, yet accompanied by such low expectations.
THE WEEK THAT WAS
More grim statistics linking the rugby codes with dementia.
Richard Boardman, the lawyer preparing the case against various rugby and league boards on behalf of a growing number of players, told The Observer that over the past decade hundreds of players have died early due to brain damage suffered while playing sport.
“What’s certain is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of current and former rugby players in a bad way across the UK and the wider rugby world. It is an absolute epidemic,” Boardman said. “We believe 400-plus rugby players across both codes, whether that’s elite or amateur, have died prematurely in the last decade or so due to things related to brain damage and playing the sport.”
It comes in a week, where more stories of players struggling and dying with early onset dementia have made the news, and Steve Thompson, the former England hooker who cannot remember playing in the 2003 World Cup final, released his book. He was interviewed at length by The Times, which was syndicated in the NZ Herald (both paywalled).
He has stood on the train station platform imagining what it would be like to throw himself onto the track. “You just feel, ‘I don't deserve to be here.’ I used to think people who took their own lives were selfish whereas now I think it's probably one of the most selfless things you could do. You think everyone else is better off without you.”
Former England coach Clive Woodward contributed to Thompson’s book, and to an upcoming documentary on players suffering with premature dementia. He wrote a nicely balanced column in the Daily Mail.
There is still much work to be done at the breakdown. Some of these flying clear-outs are extraordinarily dangerous to heads and prone limbs and referees are not doing enough to eradicate them. They are illegal by the law but are not being penalised. We are a long way from being on top of this.
Wimbledon will ban Russian and Belarusian players this year. This includes Russian world No2 Daniil Medvedev and Aryna Sabalenka, the Belarusian who made it through to last year’s semifinals.
Russian world No8 Andrey Rublev has described it as “complete discrimination”, while Martina Navratilova, who defected from then-Communist Czechoslovakia as a young player, and Novak Djokovic, who was raised in war-torn Serbia, also voiced their disapproval.
Staying with tennis, this was a thorny first-person piece by Pam Shriver (in The Telegraph via the NZ Herald), describing her relationship with her 50-year-old coach when she was 17.
“My main motivation is to let people know this still goes on - a lot. I believe abusive coaching relationships are alarmingly common in sport as a whole. My particular expertise, though, is in tennis, where I have witnessed dozens of instances in my four-and-a-bit decades as a player and commentator. Every time I hear about a player who is dating their coach, or I see a male physio working on a female body in the gym, it sets my alarm bells ringing.”
THE ANZAC WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
Finally, a bit of cross-border Super Rugby action. I’d be lying if I said I was jumping out of my skin at the prospect but there is one game that should give an accurate assessment of where the standard sits either side of the sea.
Brad Thorn’s Reds have been going great guns in Australia while the Hurricanes have flattered to deceive in New Zealand. If the competition has any sort of parity then the Reds should win. If the Hurricanes prevail, these next few weeks could be a slog.
Hurricanes v Reds, Melbourne, tomorrow 9.45pm, Sky Sport 1
It is an ordinary slate of Anzac weekend matches in the NRL except, of course, the Wazzas and Storm.
There’s been enough time to digest the horror of the refereeing and bunker interventions against the Roosters to just admire the performance for what it was: a Warriors team giving a gritty performance against a competition favourite.
As it turns out, they’ll be facing a similar talent deficit against the Storm but they now play with not just hope, but a smidgen of expectation that they can hold their own and even upset a few of the good sides.
Melbourne Storm v NZ Warriors, Melbourne, Monday 9pm, Sky Sport 4
A bit of Steven Adams sadness in the NBA playoffs, with the big centre largely sidelined as the Memphis Grizzlies go small ball against Karl-Anthony Towns and the Minnesota Timberwolves. This guy explains why Adams is not a good fit for this series. I didn’t want to take him seriously because he wrote “death nail” in his tweet and doesn’t know what “prodigal son” means, but this analysis seems credible.
The two-seed Grizzlies are struggling mightily against the seven seeds, but it’s not even the NBA’s most compelling two v seven series.
Brooklyn Nets (0) v Boston Celtics (2), New York, Sunday 11.30am, ESPN
Random F1/ geography chat: The F1 roadshow moves to Italy for the Emilia Romagna GP at Imola. The track, where Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger died in 1994 for years hosted the San Marino GP, giving people the mistaken impression that Imola was in the tiny republic, when in fact it is close to 100km from its border.
The narrow track has cool sounding corners, like Tamburello, Villeneuve, Tosa, Piratella, Acque Minerali and Rivazza, which is much classier than Turn 1, 2, 3 and so on.
The race will most likely be another Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) v Max Verstappen (Red Bull) fight, which is just an excuse to use this funny footage from their karting days.
Qualifying, Imola, tomorrow, 3am, Spark Sport
Sprint race, Imola, Sunday 2.30am, Spark Sport
Emilia Romagna GP, Imola, Monday 1am, Spark Sport
Either Manchester City or Liverpool will win the Premier League. Chelsea will almost certainly finish third. The interest is on who will take the fourth and final Champions League place. Will it be Tottenham Hotspur? Or will it be Arsenal or the “ghost ship” that is Manchester United, who have just appointed Ajax’s Erik ten Hag as manager for next season?1
Arsenal v Manchester United, Emirates Stadium, tomorrow 11.30pm, Spark Sport
Random AFL chat: No sport quite gets into Anzac mode like the AFL with its traditional showpiece Collingwood-Essendon clash.
These two original VFL/AFL clubs have met at the MCG on Anzac Day since 1995 - once the influential RSL had lifted their opposition to sport on the day.
The original fixture ended in an incredible 111-111 draw and since then the game has attracted the biggest crowd of the year outside the grand final. Taking out the years between 2003-06 when the ground was redeveloped to host the Commonwealth Games, and last year when there was reduced attendance due to Covid (the match was postponed entirely in 2020), the smallest crowd has been 73,000 and the largest 94,000.
It is a phenomenon and although both teams come into this clash with a losing record, Collingwood (2-3) and Essendon (1-4) remain huge drawcards because of their history. Essendon has the most flags (premierships) with 16, along with Carlton, while Collingwood are third with 15.
Essendon v Collingwood, Melbourne, Monday 5.20pm, Sky Sport Select
Random cycling chat: We’re in the midst of a massive seven days of cycling with three headline races on the calendar - Paris-Roubaix and La Fleche Wallonne have been ticked off, just the Liege-Bastogne-Liege to go.
All three are spring classics but Fleche Wallonne is not a ‘monument’. A couple of readers have asked what the distinction is and I didn’t really know other than to say the five monuments are regarded as the most prestigious of the one-day classics.
To broaden my knowledge, I dragged up this story in Peloton magazine from a year ago, which explains it nicely.
The incomparable Eddy Merckx has won the most monuments (19), miles ahead of fellow Belgian Roger De Vlaeminck (11). Those two, along with compatriot Rik van Looy (8) are the only riders to have won all five monuments.
Four of the monuments have included women’s races though the Milan-San Remo event was cancelled after 2005. Only the Giro Lombardia, another Italian classic and the only autumn monument hence its poetic nickname as “the race of the falling leaves”, is yet to stage a women’s race.
Lesson over.
The Liege-Bastogne-Liege starts on Sunday night. La Doyenne, or The old Lady, is the oldest of the monuments and at 257.1kms and a bunch of climbs towards the back of the race, arguably the toughest.
Tadej Podacar, who counts Kiwi George Bennett as a teammate at UAE Team Emirates, will be the favourite although he was overwhelmed in the midweek Fleche Wallonne by Belgium’s Dylan Teuns, who will be a strong contender here, along with Julian Alaphillippe and veteran Alejandro Valverde in his final season. If Valverde did the unthinkable at 41, he’d match Merckx’s five titles.
Dion Smith at Team Bike Exchange-Jayco is the only other Kiwi in the field, while Jack Bauer is a substitute rider on that team. Corbin Strong is a substitute at Israel-Premier Tech.
In the women’s race, which starts from Bastogne on the same day and finishes at Liege, New Zealand has five riders: Niamh Fisher-Black (Team SD Worx), Mikayla Harvey (Canyon-Sram), Georgia Williams (Team Bike Exchange-Jayco), Henrietta Christie (Human Powered heath) and Michaela Drummond (Bepink).
Cycling New Zealand has (rightfully, see lead item) copped a lot of heat over the past couple of years, but the presence of so many of our female riders in the classics can only be a boon for the sport.
Liege-Bastogne-Liege Femmes, Sunday 9.35pm
Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Sunday 11.30pm, both Sky Sport 4
NEXT WEEK
The Bounce will be back on Tuesday to look at some of the Anzac Weekend sporting flashpoints, with another newsletter at the end of the week. Normal service will return the following week.
Thanks again for your support and please keep the feedback coming.
It is my patriotic duty not to point to the A-League here given that I have highlighted an upcoming Phoenix fixture three times this season for a combined score of 0-14.