Swimming: Controversial SA coach named Olympic manager

File photo / Kenny Rodger

Swimming New Zealand has named a controversial former South African coach as campaign manager for next year's Olympic Games.

Rushdee Warley joined High Performance Sport New Zealand earlier this year, and it was their recommendation to SNZ which secured him the job for London. HPSNZ acting chief executive Marty Toomey is solidly behind Warley for the role, despite his admissions of lapses in people management skills with Swimming South Africa and allegations of racism.

Toomey believes a degree of scaremongering is behind those claims, pointing out that Warley had never been investigated by the commission of inquiry into the running of SSA three years ago.

"He was very upfront," Toomey said. "There were definitely some allegations levelled at him, but nothing ever came of that.

"What you've seen [on swimming websites] is probably a significant exaggeration of the truth around some of what happened.

"What we got out of Rushdee, and our background checks, was more of the real story of what had happened in some of those instances."

Toomey said Warley's capabilities as an HP director had never been challenged, although he had confessed to a lack of management skills in some cases.

"He had some shortcomings, as all of us do in terms of how we may have dealt with a couple of situations and that was something he would look to address."

Warley, whose briefs with SSA included high performance and team manager at world, Olympic and Commonwealth Games, will be working with several sports in New Zealand including rowing and cycling.

Toomey said his swimming knowledge would enable Warley to "hit the ground running".

"He understands that high performance environment, and he understands swimming."

Meanwhile, ructions which have swirled around SNZ for the past month will come to a head at its annual general meeting in Hutt Valley tomorrow.

Eight of the 16 regions, plus the Swim Coaches and Teachers Association, asked the board to resign last month in the wake of last June's Ineson Report, which was highly critical of operations at the high performance end.