Gee I don't want to sound like a tosser on this topic like am some kinda expert, but by virtue of pure genetic lottery Olympians are many in my family. Nothing I ever did or earned has anything to do with that fact, rather a freak of coincidence and circumstance has some how weirdly left a nobody like me with Olympic connections and family roots.
A great great uncle first started the family Olympic thing in the 1920's running for NZ. Then me cousins the Kendals made waves in my life time, and another cousin swum for our country got the NZ record in the pool as a teen and raced in a couple of Olympics.
I know I have posted rants before about being a parent of a kid on an Olympic track, but I don't do it to take any kind of lime light or silly soccer dad Ballet mum credit, rather I hope I am shedding light on the life style that creates these incredible athletes and the stark contrast between the Olympic model and the Rugby codes.
Great win by the Sevens side, for a country our size we really should celebrate any gold medal, even if it turns out to be the only one we win.
Halberg and Snell were freaks in a small window before greater runners from Africa etc emerged who arguably used the Lydiard method (the controversy is that African runners do the Lydiard method naturally in terms of stamina and Arthur's world influence had nothing to do with that).
That aside there is no debate that Arthur Lydiard created NZs greatest runners we all know Lydiard revolutionized running by making endurance the base of all running sports in the middle distance sphere. Which is why countries like Finland credit Lydiard for his influence.
I was fortunate through work to be Arthur's wife's friend, so through her I got to know him personally.
Any rant from me is coming with some argument and criticism so here goes....
The New Zealand attitude and tall poppy mentality around Olympics goes like this:
Anything less than gold is a failure.
Any narrative that does not tie into this idea of punching well above our weight is a fail.
All NZ Olympians have to meet the national cultural identity by being humble and complete supplicants to the NZ media machine.
Ergo Snell was driven out of NZ as a private person by the media circus and constant public scrutiny.
Arthur Lydiard buggered off when NZ expectations demanded that he repeat his once in a century miracles every Olympics. This is a guy that was a revolutionary in world running coaches, a literal genius ahead of the rest of the planet, yet our culture sent him offshore.
John Walker hated the NZ media because as an outspoken confident personality he was labelled arrogant (I was close friends with Johns sister Margaret, a theater Nurse at Middlemore).
Then along came Danyon Loader the greatest NZ Olympian ever.
But the NZ narrative will not tell you that, the NZ narrative will say the middle distance runners Snell and Halberg are the best this country has eve produced.
That is absolute rubbish.
Loader won gold in the premier event in world swimming free style, he broke the world record in the two hundred then broke the world record in the four hundred, proving he was the sprint king and endurance king of the sexy events in the pool.
Loader is the only fastest New Zealander in the pool in any event, and he did it in two freestyle races. He was such an incredible athlete that he won Silver in the Butterfly, that would be equivalent to Snell and Halberg winning Silver in the hurdles (a completely different discipline).
Unfortunately for Loader he was on the Autistic spectrum, and at that time Paul Holmes was the voice of New Zealand.
Loader refused multiple Holmes show interview requests, which Holmes weaponized to call him arrogant, the same accusation that drove Snell to become an American college lecturer.
When Loader finally took that Holmes show interview Holmes attacked him.
So yeah, from my insights into the Olympics, New Zealand is a appalling country to try to be an Olympian because it is one of the only countries in the world that attacks its own athletes.
Something Australia never does, they circle the wagons and have the biggest and greatest ever bandwagon exceptionalism cheer leader squad in the Southern Hemisphere.
Loader is the GOAT because swimming is like running in the two hundred and four hundred with long periods where you are not allowed to breath during your Sprint.
Stuff all track sprinters would survive that war against water that Swimmers live in.
And Loader is the GOAT because in swimming every single event is decided in the hundreths of a second metric which means every single movement of your body has to be perfect in every single stroke. No Runner like Halberg, Snell, or Walker had to hold their breath for half the race and make every single stride technically perfect while crossing the finish line with four or five runners one half of one second apart from you.
