Cycling NZ: Time to tear it down and start again
Recent reporting highlights a desperately ill-equipped sporting organisation. PLUS: Black Caps DRS madness nullifies Southee magic.
WARNING: THE BELOW CONTENT HAS REFERENCES TO SUICIDE.
If ever there was a sporting organisation ripe for tearing down and beginning again from scratch, it is Cycling New Zealand.
Not a change of CEO, high-performance director or board chairman; an actual root-trunk-and-branch tearing down of the organisation. The first step in that process would be the board to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting and vote in unanimity to dismiss itself.
That’s the only conclusion that can be reached after reading the mounds of negative reporting on the organisation, which culminated in Tom Dillane’s exhaustive long read on the life and death of Olivia Podmore in the Weekend Herald ($).
It’s the only conclusion that can be reached when Cycling NZ is in the midst of its third major inquiry in eight years following the Heron report (2018) and MartinJenkins review (2013).
For a long time now I have had concerns about New Zealand’s high-performance sporting environment, particularly in Olympic sports, and if I had to pick one story that encapsulates my thinking, it would be this one from last year. Nothing has deterred me from believing that all the very worst “unintended consequences” of having a funding model predicated upon winning medals are coming home to roost - and I put unintended consequences in inverted commas because to many people sharper than myself, they were utterly predictable.
Cycling is the epitome of a sport that is rotten at its core. I mean, it’s a great sport. Fantastic. Whether it’s one-day classics, grand tours, track cycling mayhem, mountainbike grit or the frenetic energy of BMX, there is something for everyone. It’s also a sport that has been appallingly run at international and domestic level for decades. Nobody obfuscates quite like cycling administrators, who run on the tenets provided by the Three Wise Monkeys.
The Podmore story is one of incredible complexity. It has elements of a Shakespearean tragedy - the idea of her being a victim of fate rings loudly throughout - but that’s not quite fitting as she was rarely the lead character, even in her own story.
Dillane has done some outstanding reporting. He’s tied together a number of elements of Podmore’s career and life that allows the reader to understand more clearly why it might have ended the way it did (one tiny gripe: with such powerful material, why make the entry point to the story a weirdly irrelevant anecdote?).
Podmore was clearly a troubled young woman and cycling was only part of who she was, though it was obviously a part that caused her much angst.
The overriding takeaway Dillane’s story and previous reporting by Stuff’s Dana Johannsen has left is that athlete care was very low on the list of Cycling New Zealand priorities.
There have been people appointed to key positions that should have raised huge red flags, yet there is no indication any due diligence was done.
It seems the very basics of executive and board-level oversight were not undertaken.
That is a massive failure.
Reset and renewal has been proven to be ineffective for cycling. It’s time to tear it down and start again; to disestablish Cycling New Zealand and for an independent recruitment team to appoint a new board to start to build something new and functional in its place.
It is also a process that High Performance Sport NZ, who have an increasingly poor track record of athlete-welfare oversight themselves, should play no part in.
But more on that at a later date.
Young and the listless
It would not be overstating it to suggest Tom Latham owes Will Young and the rest of his team a big shift in the final day of the first test against India.
New Zealand have done really well to stay in the game, given everything that has been stacked against them, most notably losing the toss on a wicket that was always going to deteriorate badly, and being on the receiving end of extremely poor umpiring.
There is of course technology in place to mitigate against the latter; technology Latham himself used effectively in the first innings when the normally excellent Nitin Menon and Virender Sharma - who has looked out of his depth - seemed intent on firing him out as he battled his way to 95.
Twice he reviewed LBW decisions against him when he had inside-edged the ball into his pads, and once he reviewed a caught behind decision where he had not edged the ball, but had instead brushed his pad with his bat.
Late last night he was needed when Young, very much his junior partner, was given out leg before to cricket’s ultimate heel, Ravichandran Ashwin. It looked a poor decision on first glance and even worse on second, the ball turning extravagantly from off to leg.
Young is a relative novice on the international scene - a guy who would be wary of the embarrassment associated with using a review for frivolous purposes (to contrast, if that was Ross Taylor facing, he would have made the signal to review it before the umpire’s arm had reached full height).
Young needed help from the guy playing his 60th test at the other end. He needed Latham to make the same alert judgements he’d made when rightly saving his own skin in the first innings.
With three reviews at your disposal and Young’s wicket so important - he batted beautifully on day two on the way to 89 - it should have been a no-brainer, but something went dreadfully amiss. Latham’s synapses must have switched to slow-twitch because by the time they had finished their fireside chat and Young went upstairs, he had clearly missed the allotted time.
As Young was trudging off he would have, ironically, been hoping that the replay would confirm he was out. It was never going to.
While Latham and Young batted superbly in the first innings, they haven’t been New Zealand’s stars of the show.
In some of the most unhelpful fast bowling conditions imaginable, Tim Southee’s match haul of eight wickets and Kyle Jamieson’s six have been remarkable.
Both have been forced to run in through the equivalent of a packet of unfiltered cigarettes each time they’ve delivered the ball onto an unresponsive strip of clay, yet they’ve been tireless, particularly Southee, who has also had to endure a round of painkillers after straining a groin muscle.
It was a mistake not to play Neil Wagner. The three-pronged spin attack has been ineffective and the best way to solve a selection conundrum is always by asking yourself this question: who would India rather face, regardless of conditions, Wagner or Will Somerville/ Ajaz Patel?
It’s not that difficult to answer.
READS OF THE WEEKEND
Obviously Tom Dillane’s epic, as linked to above, but here’s a couple of other worthwhile reads.
Like Olivia Podmore, Wales footballer and manager Gary Speed took his own life leaving behind a bunch of people searching for answers they’ll never find. Ten years on from his death, the BBC talked to those closest to him.
I really like long-distance running, but some people really need it. Like Kelaine Conochan, who wrote this first-person piece about competing in one of the world’s toughest races, the 217km Badwater ultramarathon.
Sample: “I had to get comfortable being completely exposed - to my crew, to the elements, to the possibility of failure. To the unthinkable fear that I'm not good enough, not tough enough. That those boys might have been right about me.”
PIC OF THE WEEKEND
One further thought: Hamish Bond might have some very interesting insights into Cycling NZ's culture & organisation. I didn't think he was treated as well as he should have been, although it could be that he just simply was happier rowing - understandable really given he finished up with another gold medal.
I had a very restless night's sleep after reading Tom Dillane's story about Olivia Podmore. Right from when news of her death broke the story has unsettled me. The more that emerges, the worse it gets.
One reason it's uncomfortable for me as an active club track cyclist as I find myself wondering how something which is so much fun can be so rotten at the top. Then there's the sheer wastefulness of a promising life lost & the grief of those left behind.
You are right to say the whole culture needs to change not just at Cycling New Zealand but also at High Performance Sport. Podmore went to the Rio Olympics aged 19 which is remarkable. The Dillane article has a photo of Podmore just after her win at the Cambridge World Cup meet in December 2019 - I was there and it certainly was a magic moment. Yet somehow she isn't selected for Tokyo - against the background of reasonable performance in my mind that should have had someone at High Performance asking for a please explain (maybe even the NZOC should also have been asking).
It's clear that there wasn't a lot of support around young riders, and that is probably also true of other sports, so maybe Grant Robertson both as Minister of Sport & as Minister of Finance & the person signing the cheques should be asking questions.
In the meantime well done Tom Dillane for some excellent reporting and thank you for keeping it in the forefront of the news. It's the least Olivia Podmore and her family deserve.