Top 20 Swim Stories 2016: #1 – In A Lifetime, What The Forbes & Shirley Have We Allowed?

SwimVortex concludes its countdown of the most significant swimming stories of Olympic Year 2016.

Our series in full (bold entries related to the theme of this file):

1. In A Lifetime, What The Forbes & Shirley Have We Allowed? 2. Phelps, Bowman, Legend, Lore & Legacy 3. The Long Reach of Ledecky 4. The Marshall Art Of Peaty Power 5. Murphy’s Law; USA Rules 6: Dolphins Down Under But No Underdogs 7: The colour is Gold: Olympic gold 8: Bob Bowman’s Golden Rules 9: The slow burn of Sarah Sjostrom and coaches 10: Mireia, Fred & The Alchemy Of If To When 11: Gregorio The Great 30-Lapper 12: Putting the Great Back Into Britain 13: Masters, Servants & Subsidies – a model of governance that has had its day 14: The ruinous nature of runes in an Olympic year 15: Custodians in Crisis: FINA – Same As It Ever Was 16: The Australia/ China interface highlights questions of faith & fair dinkum 17:  Schools Out; Schooling’s In: aspiration, inspiration and the impact of Michael Phelps 18. The Swimming Selfie 19. The Canadian Comeback  20. On Hosszu Heights

Today, with wishes for a Healthy and Happy New Year to all our readers and the worldwide swimming community: In A Lifetime. 

Hard to tell Or recognise a sign To see me through A warning sign First the thunder Satisfied, if the past it will not lie Then the storm Torn asunder … … Unless it disappears

Forbes and Ursula Carlile – at the centre of swimming lives for generations

First the thunder Selfish storm Then the storm Hold on the inside Torn asunder One life In the storm In a lifetime In a lifetime – Clannad

No 1 – In a Lifetime

What had he seen; what had he witnessed; what had he battled against; what had he lived through in a swimming lifetime? The experience of Forbes Carlile, lost to us in 2016, is one of  several pegs on which we hang our No1 entry in this list of the year’s top 20 stories.

Shirley Babashoff, Kornelia Ender and Enith Brigitha, 1976

The second peg is the SwimVortex book of the year, Making Waves, by Shirley Babashoff, a swimmer who represents generations of women beaten into submission by systematic, state and otherwise, doping – let’s hear it for Allison Wagner, for Maggie Kelly, for Edith Brigitha, for Nancy Garapick, for many others and their coaches and parents who went down as Olympic also-swans when they might well have gone down as champions and podium placers on the back of years of dedication and hard work. Babshoff, it should be noted, has also backed calls for reconciliation and has done much to further that cause.

Alongside that are the events related to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, namely statements such as those from:

coaches Jon Rudd, Bob Bowman and the swimmer of the year, Michael Phelps the stance of John Leonard, George Block, Bill Sweetenham and many coaching peers on the burning topics of doping and failed governance;

Lillian King – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Mack Horton of Australia – by Patrick B. Kraemer

and the icing on the cake:

the courage of Mack Horton and Lilly King in Rio de Janeiro and to all those who stood in the stands and booed and jeered and railed against that which they are no longer prepared to put up with. and the courage of whistleblowers in Russia and China who want the news to reach the wider world so that their sports communities, their children, their young athletes do not have to travel the road of Babashoff, the GDR girls, Yuan Yuan and others who are, quite simply, victims of a system of abuse tolerated and, through that and a form of heavily subsidised-for-life governance founded on and sustained by self-interests, supported by the custodians of swimming.  Note well the identity of these people: they are Russian and Chinese. Neither we nor the vast majority of those who listens to their cry for help and call on authorities to tackle deep-seated problems in Russia, China (or anywhere else) are racist, anti-Russia, ant-Chinese, and so on. The media that has pursued the truth and exposed the rotting corpse of victims and some of the weapons that killed them and clean sport. [NB: there is no recognition for the likes of Prof. Richard McLaren, WADA and others who have done fine reactive work, mainly because that job and the reform that needs to flow from it is far from over]

We are: anti-doping; we are anti-custodial malaise and the fat-cattery of blazer lifestyle first, blazer world tour second, blazer self-importance third, athlete off the podium, coach ignored almost entirely, both athlete and coach unrepresented in the governance of their sport but for committees chosen by the custodians working on their own podium agendas.

Making Waves – Shirley Babashoff – Santa Monica Press

Shirley Babashoff and Kornelia Ender, reconciled – but what efforts have the custodians of swimming made on that score? None. – image courtesy of Shirley Babashoff and Making Waves

Here are some links to some of those pegs in honour of the brave who took a stand against the intolerable at the end swimming’s trail of sorrows. What the Forbes and Shirley have we allowed, asks our headline. The folk in the stories below know only too well. This No1 entry is a tribute to Forbes Carlile, his fighting spirit; to Shirley Babashoff for a lifetime in a life robbed of the recognition it deserves; and to all those who refused to simply go along to get along in the face of the intolerable and wholly unacceptable.

Many coaches and programs out there are blind to their own history. Neither they nor so-called swimming ‘fans’ who celebrate the second but forget the century are friends of a sport soaked in abuse.

Below are some of the stories that feed into the common thread: here are the issues that have sullied and shaped swimming and the fine achievements of clean athletes in this Olympic years of 2016. They represent the failure of swimming’s custodians, the guardians of the sport in their roles as leaders of the international federation FINA and the domestic federations that have the power to shape what happens in global waters, to provide:

clean sport safe sport standardisation that speaks to both of the above

The pegs on which to hang the shame of swimming’s leadership:

Forbes Carlile, with kids and two significant women in his life, Ursula, his wife, and (b&w, NT Archive) Shane Gould

Forbes Carlile (3 June 1921 – 2 August 2016): A Personal Tribute From Shane Gould

August 2, 2016 – A memory of Forbes Carlile – by Shane Gould

Australian Forbes Carlile Passes Away At 95: Swimming Mourns A Coaching Pioneer

August 2, 2016 – Obituary: Earlier today, legendary Australian swim coach Forbes Carlile, MBE, passed away at age 95. The following is the official statement and release on Carlile’s passing, followed by our SwimVortex memory and tribute to the man

Shirley Babashoff – as posted by the swimmer of herself on Twitter

40 Years On: Why Shirley Babashoff’s Making Waves Is The SwimVortex Book Of 2016

July 30, 2016 – Making Waves is the SwimVortex book of the year, not only because it is a good and painful and difficult and informative read but because it delivers the twin track to the doping court cases, the Stasi files, the victims in court and the criminal convictions in Germany. Both sides of a losing coin. Toss is up and pray for Rio. In the context of 1976 and in the context of 2016, this book is powerfully significant. I commend Making Waves to you. Read it and weep. From sexual abuse to doping, Shirley Babashoff talks us through our headline: In a lifetime – on our watch. She is the the 2016 recipient of the Carlile Cup.

The pathway to clean sport must start with a period in the cold for those who have fallen foul of Fair Play – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Star Wars: When Swimming Custodians Leave Athletes To Defend Clean Sport

August 11, 2016 – Editorial: This is what happens when swimming is run by people who don’t do nearly enough to serve clean sport and clean athletes for decade after decade. There is a gathering of IOC, WADA and many more in September to sort it all out and start again. Their survival depends on it.

Coach Leaders Urge Swimmers: “Let Your Voices Be Heard, Own Clean Sport”

August 10, 2016 –  The swimosphere is an ocean of high fives for those who speak up and a doldrum of thumbs down for those towing an asterisk or excusing all that entails. Today brings the following open letter from John Leonard, director of the World and American swimming coaches associations. It is a letter of support for those speaking up and an appeal for more athletes to let their voices be heard. The letter in full…

Cold War In The Pool: As IOC Boss Backs Lifetime Bans – It’s Babashoff Vs Salnikov

August 9, 2016 – The echo from history stood out in twitterdom for the clarion call it was: @_king_lil you are #MAKINGWAVES and we love it! Go girl- you are what the world – and ESPECIALLY what the Olympics need right now. #HONESTY – Shirley Babashoff. And here was another slice of history: FINA Bureau member and Russian swim federation boss Vladimir Salnikov, twice an Olympic 1500m freestyle champion for the Soiviet Union (1980 and 1988) today said that the atmosphere surrounding his team at the Olympics reminded him of the Cold War. He criticised American 100m breatsstroke champion Lilly King for “attacking the integrity of her Russian rival”, apparently having forgotten the 2013 positive steroid test for which Yuliya Efimova* was banned.

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly” – Abraham Lincoln

August 8, 2016 – “The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly” – Abraham Lincoln – In that sense, letting the Russians in, letting the charade unfold, letting the tears flow, letting each and every day of these Games so far be turned into a place where clean athletes confront on an event-by-event basis those who fell from grace when they tested positive for banned substances, just may be the best thing that could ever have happened if the Olympic Movement is to be salvaged from the shipwreck it floats on as sharks circle

FINA in focus: Julio Maglione, top right, is the latest in a line of federation presidents back to George Hearn 1908

Yuan Yuan under arrest, 1998, by Craig Lord at Perth Airport

Why Julio Maglione*** Is As Useful To Clean Swimmers As A FINA Fart In A Spacesuit 

July 26, 2016 – Editorial: I admit upfront that I’m writing a second editorial on the day under the influence of performance-detracting substances, typhus and various other shots coursing through vein as I contemplate words that, nonetheless, spark some of the clearest thought I ever had: Julio Maglione*** (that’s our new asterisk denoting FINA officials who should resign for bringing the sport of swimming into disrepute) is unfit for purpose and should step down from the FINA presidency without hesitation

Vitaly Melnikov – banned for 2 years, now for eight years – Russia’s catalogue of woe places it on the podium of Shame

Vitaly Melnikov & Eight-Year Doping Ban Highlight How & Why The System Is Broken

November 13, 2016 – It was April 20 this year, just in time for the Russian nationals and Olympic trials, when Vitaly Melnikov returned to seek national-team selection after having served a doping suspension of two years for EPO, the blood booster. Now, he’s effectively gone for life: an eight-year ban has been imposed on the latest Russian doping case. That makes the Russian case file of woe second to none in world swimming – and fit for third place on the all-time ranking of rogue nations in the pool after the GDR …

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