Swimming: Rushton plays down absence from squad

By DAVID LEGGAT

Leading swimming coach Clive Rushton last night moved to play down the reasons he will not be with the New Zealand squad at the Athens Olympic Games.

National director of coaching Rushton leaves for a pre-Games camp on the Greek island of Kefalonia next Thursday with part of the 13-strong New Zealand Olympic contingent.

But he will not be in the Olympic village during the Games competition.

Instead, the coaching will be in the hands of North Shore head coach and former Olympic silver medallist Jan Cameron, her assistant, former German Olympic swimmer Thomas Ansorg, and Christchurch's Todd Mason, who coaches the squad's youngest swimmer, 15-year-old Annabelle Carey.

Adding to the confused picture, Clive Power, the highly regarded Tauranga-based coach of butterfly exponent Moss Burmester, has pulled out in favour of staying back to work on establishing an elite swimming academy.

Radio reports yesterday speculated that some of the swimmers were unhappy at Rushton being involved with the squad in Athens.

Rushton would not comment on that, but insisted he had effectively ruled himself out of a job at the Games.

It was part of Rushton's job to make the nominations for the three permissible coaching/management positions early in April. He put down Power, Cameron and Ansorg for the jobs. Mason has replaced Power.

Rushton believes the confusion may have arisen from the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002, when he stepped in to coach several swimmers. "There were 10 swimmers, five from North Shore and five from five different programmes. We only had two accreditations," he said.

"Obviously Jan took one [accreditation] and I took on those other five swimmers, which made logical sense.

"Manchester was the anomaly. I haven't taken a coaching role for any of the other competitions since then. I've been present at some, but haven't been coaching."

Rushton said there was "no strangeness" about the situation and believed the confusion had come from him often being referred to as national coach, rather than director of coaching.

He said passing comment on the allegations over disgruntled swimmers not wanting him in Athens would serve no useful purpose.

It was "a bit of a surprise" that the issue had surfaced now, as all the coaching personnel had known of the situation for several weeks.

Rushton is undecided whether he will stay in Athens for the Olympics.

The remainder of the squad arrive in Kefalonia, an hour's flight west of Athens, on July 29.

Power's academy plans were to have been approved by Swimming New Zealand last week, but the national body wanted more time to consider the proposal.

Power, who was to have been team manger in Athens and has coached Burmester for nine years, said it was a hard decision but maintained Burmester's preparation will not be hindered by his absence.

Rushton labelled Power's decision "almost a tragedy".

"His knowledge and experience is invaluable and the team will be the weaker."