NZ’s leading paddlers snub $2.3m race-training facility
It’s the house that Lisa Carrington built, but does not use. Canoe Racing New Zealand’s (CRNZ) sparkling new $2.3 million high performance training centre at Lake Karapiro, built off the back of Carrington’s dominance on the world stage, is not being utilised by New Zealand’s elite women.
The facility, which opened in February 2018, is the result of a decade-long ‘‘bricks and mortar’’ investment strategy by Sport NZ to improve the daily training environments for our elite athletes.
Sport NZ’s $1.6m investment in the centre was coupled with a $150,000 boost to CRNZ’s funding from High Performance Sport NZ (HPSNZ) in 2017 to ‘‘support the establishment of a centralised training programme’’.
‘‘Built around Lisa Carrington’s success, this programme also recognises the potential of the women’s K4, which finished a strong fifth in Rio, and some untapped potential in other disciplines within the sport,’’ the 2017 funding announcement read.
The only problem was, Carrington did not want to uproot her life in Auckland and relocate to Cambridge.
With her coach, Gordon Walker, also in charge of the women’s programme, which includes Carrington’s K4 teammates Kayla Imrie, Aimee Fisher and Caitlin Ryan, the entire women’s programme remains in Auckland.
The men’s programme, which is growing in international esteem although they are yet to qualify a boat for Tokyo, has been based in Karapiro since the facility opened, but it is of some embarrassment that the training centre is not home to New Zealand’s premier paddlers.
A Sport NZ commissioned site assessment report, obtained by Stuff under the Offical Information Act, noted the danger of creating a ‘‘white elephant’’ if the athletes weren’t prepared to relocate to a new high performance training centre (HPTC).
‘‘Essentially it will be a failure of the HPTC if it locates in an area where athletes are not prepared to live during the season,’’ the 2013 report, written by management consultant Peter Dale, read.
‘‘This is how white elephants are developed.’’
However, CRNZ chief executive Tom Ashley says the organisation is entirely supportive of the women’s squad continuing to train at Lake Pupuke on Auckland’s North Shore.
He says a delay in the construction of the Karapiro facility, which was initially planned for 2016, meant that by the time it opened the athletes were already settled in their preparations for next year’s Tokyo Olympics.
‘‘It was not reasonable to tell the women they had to uproot their lives in Auckland – and their coaches as well – in the middle of an Olympic build-up,’’ says Ashley, who took over the top job the month the centre opened.
‘‘We don’t want to interrupt people’s build-up to the Olympics, that’s not in their interest as athletes, nor is it in the interest of New Zealand sport in general.’’
Ashley says the expectation is the facility will be fully utilised by men’s and women’s programme in the years to come.
‘‘It is going to be an asset for the long-term, it’s not just an asset for the build-up to Tokyo. CRNZ is looking to create a sustainable programme and sustainable organisation, so we see it as our home for the next 20-30 years, not just the next two,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s really important to build it in a sensible way.’’
Ashley says six core members of the men’s programme are currently based at Karapiro fulltime, and by early next year there will be three permanent coaching staff, following the appointment of British sprint coach Tim Bradbants. Ashley adds regular training camps for the pathway to podium athletes are held at the high performance centre.
The building, which was in part funded by the Waipa District Council and local gaming trusts, also houses the Cambridge Yacht Club, while there is also a community space.
Official documents also revealed there was some initial reluctance by canoe racing officials when a centralised
Sport NZ programme based out of Karapiro was first proposed nearly seven years ago. At that time Rowing NZ had newly established its base at Karapiro, while a new velodrome in Cambridge, which was to be home to Cycling NZ, was readying completion. Sport NZ therefore saw the opportunity to create a high performance hub in Waikato, and was aggressively chasing funds for capital investment in the region.
‘‘We’d seen the transformation that the centralised system had made for rowing, and we thought that’s what we could do for canoe racing,’’ Sport NZ boss Peter Miskimmin says.
‘‘There was a bit of a debate as to where the facility should be, and a bit of to-ing and fro-ing around that.’’
Dale completed an independent site assessment report on four proposed locations – Lake Pupuke, Karapiro, the Wairoa River near Tauranga and Rotorua’s Lake Tikitapu, also known as the Blue Lake. The views of the athletes were not sought as part of the feasibility study, but lifestyle considerations were factored in when assessing the various locations.
‘‘There is an indefinable factor that relates to lifestyle. The existence of a cafe culture is important to CRNZ open squad members,’’ Dale noted in his report.
While a large proportion of the national squad lived and trained in Auckland, Dale insisted ‘‘undue emphasis on this situation should not be made’’.
‘‘In the end this is a decision about a long-term national centralised training facility,’’ Dale wrote.
The report concluded Lake Pupuke was not a suitable location as it does not have a long enough stretch for K4 boats to train on, while licensing restrictions prevented the provision of permanent lanes and the use of motorised coach crafts.
The off-water advantages Cambridge offered in terms of ‘‘hothousing’’ high performance services saw Karapiro scoring the highest rating.
A Sport NZ briefing document in May, 2013, to the then minister for sport and recreation says CRNZ had come to accept this view. ‘‘With our encouragement the CRNZ board endorsed the report and developed a strategy to centralise its high performance programme.’’
The CRNZ experience raises further questions over Sport NZ’s big push for centralised training programmes. Earlier this year HPSNZ undertook a review of its approach to centralisation as part of a broader inquiry into athlete welfare. Miskimmin says the big lesson is there is no one-size-fitsall approach to elite sport.
‘‘I think it is sport specific, for some sports it has worked incredibly well, for others – swimming would be a good example – it hasn’t been the right approach. The benefits of centralisation has been openly debated, and quite rightly so, but I guess the big learning for us is that the athlete voice is really important as well.’’
Carrington politely declined to go into the reasons why she did not want to base herself out of the new training centre, referring inquiries back to CRNZ.
‘‘I don’t want to add to that conversation,’’ she said.
‘‘I guess the big learning for us is that the athlete voice is really important as well.’’ Peter Miskimmin