28.07.2006 Craig Lord
Pieter van den Hoogenband, double Olympic champion over 100 metres freestyle, and Markus Rogan, the Austrian defending the 200m backstroke crown here at the European Championships in Budapest, are leading a campaign to form a swimmers’ union to lobby for a fair share of the commercial deals being signed by the guardians of swimming and the Olympic Games.
The move - a war on commercial deals that swimmers say are struck without consultation with them, result in scant benefits coming their way and which actually prevent them from finding private sponsors of their own - has the backing of Australian swimmers, led by Michael Klim.
It comes at a time when FINA are forming plans for all competitors at the 2007 world championships in Melbourne next year to wear the name of one of the federation’s sponsors on their caps as well as their line-up bibs.
The trend began with bibs at the world s/c championships in Indianapolis in 2004, when Olympic champion Amanda Beard was reduced to tears by an official who shouted at her when she covered her bib with a towel. No-one shouted at a rather larger swimmer called Aaron Peirsol for doing the same thing. A wise move, perhaps.
While FINA’s plans are designed to bring more money into the sport, the big question is: where does the money go and how does a swimmer attract private sponsorship if on the biggest of occasions he or she is forced to wear the name of what could be a rival product on his or her cap.
FINA’s director Cornel Marculescu has made clear that the more money the international federation can attract, the bigger the pot will be to offer more serious prize money to swimmers, extending for the first time to financial rewards at the world long-course championships. Nothing wrong with that at all (unless for those who don’t agree with giving prize money at all). There is also a voice for swimmers via the athletes’ commission, though swimmers themselves do not vote for those they wish to represent them.
Van den Hoogenband, his sights set on being an IOC-member from 2008, told John Volkers, of the Volkskrant newspaper in the Netherlands, of his plans to start a swimmers’ union along the lines of the ATP in tennis, with Rogan at the helm as president.
“Markus will be the president. He has the energy for that role. I understudy and support him with the whole of my heart. We have the backing of the Australians as well, Michael Klim has assured me,” said Van den Hoogenband, one of four who in Beijing 2008 could join that rare club of triple Olympic winners (same event at three successive Games) alongside Dawn Fraser and Krisztina Egerszegi.
Winner of the 100m free in Sydney and Athens and the 200m in Sydney, the flying Dutchman flew in the face of bureacracy when he said: “Who gives sport its face? We, the swimmers do. For a long time I’ve had no problems with swimming for the honour, for a medal. It was my objective and ambition to be a champion. It was not my first goal to become famous and make money with my sport.”
But, he added: “Skaters get 25,000 euros for a world championship, tennis players weigh prize-money in tons - we swimmers get nothing. Zero euros on our paycheck. Until a few months ago, I had no problem with that ... but now seeing that parties like FINA and LEN, and IOC, are gaining commercial deals out of our swimming, I have to change my attitude.”
Swimmers, he emphasised, were the “figureheads and keyplayers” of the sport, yet they did not share the financial rewards now starting to flow into the sport through commercial opportunities. “We don’t have a share in the financial reward and we can?t have a part in the decision-making. They ask us nothing. That has to stop.”
Asked about NBC’s request to the IOC to host swimming finals in the morning at the Olympic Games in Beijing, Van den Hoogenband said: “Do you see the big athletes of the 100 metre sprint, the Powells and Gatlins, running their final in the morning? Come on. Be serious. For one time, one tournament, they alternate the programme, because of American goals. Without knowing the opinion of the men to swim: we, us. This is worthless. For me especially. I am not a morning person. To be at my best at ten o’clock, shortly after breakfast, is impossible.”
He described the pure sport of swimming as “number one”, with the protagonists “even more important” than that. The IOC should consider that above all else when they make their decision on NBC’s request - one that has brought widespread condemnantion - next month.
“We need rest to do our job in the best way we can. The finals in the evening: we lived with it, always. We got used at it. From boyhood till maturity. And now it has to change. For one time. They simply throw away the history of the sport. It is shameful and ridiculous. This is our biggest day in our career. For every sportman. And then they change the rules of the sport. Because of commercial reasons. I don’t get it.”
Van Den Hoogenband is back in action in Budapest after two seasons away from the big stage recovering from injury. If he is as determined in the water as he clearly is out of it, rivals better watch out!
Meantime as swimmers plan a new world in which they would, rightfully, get the lion’s share of commercial deals that their achievements help to generate they might wish to consider those often even more impoverished standing by their side. I once spoke to Bob Bowman, coach to Michael Phelps. He told me that he takes a healthy share of some of the benefits that come the way of the six times Olympic gold medal winner. Quite right too.
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