Paul Lewis: Canoeing in a sad place

It was 1984. We were outside Los Angeles, near Lake Casitas, the Olympic rowing and canoeing venue of the time.

It was hot and dry and we were in high spirits. Myself and NZ Herald photographers Paul Estcourt and Ross Land were rolling down the highway (to borrow from a Doobie Brothers song) to visit the New Zealand canoeing team - Ian Ferguson, Paul MacDonald, Alan Thompson and Grant Bramwell.

Spirits were high because the boring rental car we were supposed to pick up (the Los Angeles Olympic venues were miles apart and the official buses took an age ... ) was out of stock.

How would we like it, the rental car man said, if we gave you a Z28 Camaro for the same price? Damn. We'd like it fine.

Land's eyes bulged like a man having a rectal examination - but we knew to keep him from the driving wheel. So we shot off down the road, the kick-ass stereo turned up to ear-bleed, and set course for the canoeists.

They had arranged lodgings through their canny manager, Bill Garlick, in what appeared to be some kind of ranch house.

No athletes' village (it was too far away for comfortable commuting) - they had fine, homely accommodation, a big swimming pool and grounds. Stress was removed by the liberal application of familiar things. Memory might be playing tricks but I think they were barbecuing when we arrived or shortly afterwards.

As ever, the canoeists were delightful company - friendly, laid back, relaxed and open. Ferguson's wife Alison wore a bikini and a small boy called Steven Ferguson ran about the place, a shock of blond hair and a permanently enthusiastic expression on his face.

We knew them reasonably well as we'd sussed out early that canoeing could be profitable for New Zealand at these Olympics. We just hadn't realised how profitable.

By the time the Games were over, the team had won four gold medals - Ferguson in the single K1 500m; Thompson in the K1 1000m; Ferguson and MacDonald in the K2 500m and all four in the K4 1000m. It was a remarkable, unforgettable time.

It was the birth of "Ferg & Macka" and we were fortunate enough to see them add more gold in the 1988 Seoul Olympics (plus a silver and a bronze).

Back in LA, after the Games, we found our way back to the 'ranch' and took part in a wee celebration. Somehow, everyone ended up in the pool, me in my clothes.

On the way back to the media village, Land got his revenge for not being allowed to drive.

Promising to dry my shirt and trousers by holding them out the rear window of the Camaro, he chose a four-way intersection to let them go - and then refused to pick them up.

The citizens of that part of LA were less than amused to see a hairy man, clad only in his underwear, picking his way across the road to retrieve his clothing. Photographers, don't you love them?

The point of this is simple: It was the best of days and it is a crying shame New Zealand canoeing has holed itself quite so badly by getting rid of Ferguson, MacDonald and possibly Thompson.

There was a hiatus after the golden era of '84-'88, but canoeing came back - even if it was a rocky road. In the last eight years, Ferguson, MacDonald and Thompson largely built up the canoeing club scene again.

They are the "old boys" from what passes for an old boys' network in canoeing. Just as all three came from the surf lifesaving scene so were the new athletes coming into canoeing over the past five or six years.

Newcomers don't materialise because of any 'business model' created by Sparc; nor even because of the money promising overseas travel and competition.

Yes, that was then and this is now but essentially canoeing remains the same. The recruits still largely come from the surf lifesaving sector. They have community service at their heart but are also fierce competitors.

They work hard and play hard. They are no strangers to sacrifice and self-denial but also no strangers to a drink and a laugh. They generally have a droll and even cynical sense of humour. They call a spade a bloody shovel.

Try putting that on a spreadsheet. Or a slide.

I have no doubt Sparc are sincere in their hopes and wishes for New Zealand canoeing. But you'd have to question the execution as described in "Canoeing crisis Sparcs row" on pages 74-75.

Canoeing doesn't fit easily into corporate boxes. The sport depends, by its very nature, on people like Ferguson, MacDonald and Thompson. New techniques? Absolutely. Better ways of doing things? No question. Improved sports science and applications. Sure. Are the old ways always right? Of course not.

But the bottom line is that sport still depends on the heartbeat of the participants, even in these professional, scientific, money-soaked and heavily expectant times.

There still has to be fun, fairness, transparency and rewards. Somehow canoeing seems to have lost touch with all that. Regardless of the blame and the rights and wrongs, someone has to touch canoeing with a healing hand; some attention to its culture and the rather special and unusual people who make it tick.

Somehow, even with the new ways and in a new age, a way has to be found to tap into the Ferg & Macka syndrome.

They were all that was and is good and great in New Zealand sport - ordinary folk from ordinary backgrounds, committed but humble people from a tiny base in a tiny sport from a tiny country punching well above its weight - and beating the best in the world.

Canoeing seems to have forgotten all that.

Time to find it again.