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That Event That is More Inspirational Than the Olympics
Today the Australian Swimming Championships, doubling as the Olympic selection trials began for our prospective Olympians this morning in Adelaide. The event has been shrouded in hype, misplaced a lot of it, around former greats attempting to make a comeback at the London 2012 Olympic Games just months away. Ian Thorpe, Michael Klim, Libby Trickett and Geoff Huegill, the latter having already made a successful comeback to international competition are vying for one of two spots in each Olympic event.
But there is another selection trial going on that has been so under-reported that it is almost shrouded in secrecy because reports about it have been so sparse and that is the selection trials for our current and hopeful Paralympic athletes, those people with a disability, paid little or nothing who also perform at an elite level but are in an eclipse like shadow behind their highly paid Olympian counterparts.
These so-called Elite Athletes with a Disability, EAD for short or Athletes with a Disability (AWD) will take part in events daily over the time of the trials in both heats and finals.
It is worth explaining how the competition usually works at this event for our athletes attempting selection in the Australian Paralympic team. Athletes with a disability are broken down into different classifications according to the extent of their disability and their ability to move and are assessed by accredited classifiers into these groups.
At the trials athletes compete in heats which are usually seeded according to comparable times in each respective event. For each classification there is a world record and all athletes are effectively racing to get as close to the world record for their classification in each event. The 8 closest swimmers to a world record will then compete in the final.
In the final, the three medallists are judged in the same way as places in the final are determined. That means that the three closest people to a world record will win a gold, silver or bronze medal accordingly.
Our Paralympic athletes are extraordinary people who have had to overcome more than the usual obstacles to achieve the high level representation that they do. Unlike their Olympic friends, EAD athletes have to overcome limitations from their disability too. The wonderful thing is that Athletes with a Disability at the highest level often train the same amount as elite athletes or so-called “able-bods”, so they are training with the physical impairment to the same extent as other elite athletes.
Anyone who has been to the Paralympics as a spectator will have left with a newfound respect and admiration for the abilities and achievements of people with a disability. You will encounter swimmers from south-east Asia who have lost limbs, sometimes, double-arm amputees gliding through the water like dolphins and then at the end needing to slam their heads with substantial force into the touchpads to register a time.
You are urged to tune into the evening broadcast of the finals on the Ten Network, where if previous events are any indication, at least some of the AWD events will be broadcast over the week of competition. The London 2012 Paralympics too are a must watch from the 29th of August to the 9th of September in London to be broadcast on both ABC television and radio.
So there is nothing left to do but to get ensconced in the terrific awe-inspiring exploits of those who have it much harder in life than their “able-bodied” counterparts and manage to throw off the metaphorical chains and reach amazing heights.
Waugh Is Right We Need Succession Planning and I Will Tell You Why and How it Can be Done
Today marks my first foray into the world of sports commentary and I do this on the back of comments from the former Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh about the need for succession planning, particularly for the coming post Ponting years, saying that perhaps they should be upon us in the near future.
Steve Waugh makes these comments after a successful return to form this summer by Ricky Ponting, yet this should not distract from the fact that we urgently need a succession plan put in place, including blooding future stars in a better manner than the team does, while at times resting the more experienced players, or if the case merits, dropping them altogether like Waugh suggests.
If anything, the most prescient reason that we need a broad succession plan in place is the experience of losing McGrath, Warne and other experienced players all in one hit. Almost overnight, well, by the next series or so, it showed in cricket results beginning to suffer badly at the hands of teams that rarely troubled us in the past.
Dropping players without consultation might show decisiveness on the part of Cricket Australia but this would need to be backed up by a strong succession plan which has definite players in mind for each spot coming up for availability, who have been identified and properly inducted into senior cricket at an international level.
I have in mind other ways to achieve a succession plan that should benefit the team, rather than simply dropping a player toward the end of their career whether out of form or not. It should be about a transitioning rather than ending a career and starting a new one completely out of the blue.
One method is to work with players more intimately that are getting toward the end of their careers and asking them sincerely where they see themselves in say 1-3 years. This would involved ongoing and regular re-assessment of goals over time between team management and the players, effectively allowing the players more of a say in their futures in a consultative arrangement that should avoid leaving players feeling disenfranchised as may occur in the event of being dropped outright.
Crucial to any succession plan is for Cricket Australia to involve the list of contracted players and perhaps other players of promise regularly and closely in the senior Australian team environment. This should include inviting the list of players to be involved in as much training with the Australian team as possible whilst not impacting too much on game time in the domestic or overseas cricket competitions. It should also include more Australia A matches, including where possible touring an Australia A team more often overseas with the Australian XI.
Once replacements are found and involved in the team environment it is incumbent on Cricket Australia to show faith in new players for a prolonged period of time rather than to indulge in knee-jerk reactions and dump players struggling in their first few Tests. If players have had a proper induction to the high standard of cricket required this may not even be necessary.
A final bugbear of mine is selectors picking too many players for a first representative cap that may be only a few years from retirement, denying the career longevity of promising younger players that once existed for players such as Ponting and other greats before him. That’s not to say that young players consistently showing poor performance should be given too long a leash, they should not be granted that. There should be a good mix of youth and experience.
It’s not going to be easy, but there there you have it, Cricket Australia, my ideas for how to rebuild and then maintain our cricketing greatness that was all to easily lost when we messed up our response to the precipitous loss of Warne, McGrath et al. It really can be this simple and we ought to pay attention to the words of Steve Waugh overnight or ignore them at our sporting and therefore cultural peril.
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