Swimming: Jeffs cuts through the controversy

By CHRIS RATTUE

Toni Jeffs needs look no further than a wooden box at her Paekakariki home to track the strange journey that is her swimming career.

"I must be a bit of a hoarder," she says, and the box proves the point. It contains the first ribbon and certificate she won as a kid.

There's the bronze medal she won for the 50m swim at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur four years ago.

And there are all those newspaper cuttings, detailing everything from the comebacks, triumphs and the Olympics, to a horrific car crash and the controversies that have marked a career that will continue - at the age of 33 - at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in July and August.

Jeffs may well be the oldest swimmer in the Manchester pool - a self-described "Games grandma."

But her tenacity, through the ups and downs, has also turned her into something of a New Zealand sports darling.

It certainly wasn't always that way.

She took her first serous splash as a youngster as her parents Norman and Glenyissought to protect their children from the dangers that seaside Whakatane and the nearby river presented.

Her father swam, but her mother hated water, as did her brother Brendan. Jeffs proved to be a fish, but she was also diving into troubled waters.

The Jeffs' newspaper stories tell the story; refusing to stay in the Barcelona Olympic village in 1992; sponsored by a strip joint; allegedly punched her coach; badly injured her back in a car crash; set New Zealand records; beat swimmers half her age to win the national title; won Commonwealth bronze after little training.

And even after apparently qualifying for the Sydney Olympics in 2000, her friend Vivienne Rignall produced a late time to push her out.

More potential controversy, although Jeffs declined a legal challenge, not wanting to rob her mate of an Olympic chance.

So what about the controversies? Some were misreported she says. Others were on the mark.

For instance, she had written 50 letters to companies seeking sponsorship, without getting one reply, so approached the strip club. Sometimes you have to get down to the bare essentials.

"They called me a rebel with a cause, but I was probably a rebel without a cause," she says during an interview at the Auckland viaduct.

"I cringe when I see TV clips of some of the things I said.

"Staying out of the Olympic village, though, was misconstrued. It was misreported in many ways. I was only 40 minutes away on the motorway, not three hours. But I wouldn't do it that way again.

"It's all part of the journey and I wouldn't be who I am now, doing what I'm doing, without all the things that happened.

"I did certain things my way, but then some people couldn't see outside the square. And I got swimming a lot of publicity they never would have got, although it might not have been the image they wanted.

"If I'd had a dream life I wouldn't be who I am. I came across as a loner and I like time by myself.

"But I love people. I love swim meets. I love competing against people and being part of teams. I took time out ... but swimming is what I always fell back to. I love it.

"Put me in a time trial and you'll get nutty bizarre. Get me to a swim meet, and I just love to perform and compete in front of people."

There are contradictions in there, but they are the contradictions that track through most of our lives. Most of us just don't find them portrayed in headlines.

And Jeffs paid a price for her individuality.

At this week's national swim championships in Auckland, she sat next to her partner, investment banker Bill Garlick - the former head of the New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association - and said: "Bill, I just love being here."

It wasn't always that way. The controversy over staying out of the Barcelona Olympic village and the strip club sponsorship ran her into more than a few cold shoulders for four or five years.

"I was really ostracised," she says. "It wasn't fun to go to swim meets. People would say hello, but there was no fun there.

"I might have gone away with teams, but I wasn't really part of what they were doing. I don't know if people really knew what they were doing to me, but I felt it. It drained me of so much energy. Always fighting.

"But time does heal. It is so different now. People respect that I've hung in there. The people involved have also changed. Now I can chill out and have fun."

Some of the Jeffs' determination came from a simple line delivered by her father when she was in her mid-teens. He told her that if she could combine her ability with her brother's grit, she would set New Zealand records.

"That's when everything changed. It certainly hit me and they are words I'll never forget."

It takes some determination to keep ploughing through the water in low-profile New Zealand sports.

There was a long time when Jeffs could hardly afford a decent feed. Rice and cheap mince was the substitute. Home was a dingy flat, and she was kicked off the dole because as a fulltime athlete, she wasn't available for employment.

Jeffs, though, has found her own way through these times, even with her rare training system.

She began in the traditional swimming methods, which involved long hours of staring at the bottom of the pool, singing tunes to herself and playing mathematical tricks with the lane links.

Now, she often spends more time on a bicycle than in the pool, doing two- to three-hour rides - often on her own - four to five times a week. It is, she says, one of the secrets to the success of her swimming longevity.

"There was a time when I swam 100km a week, but it didn't do anything for me as a sprinter. All it taught me to do was swim 100km a week," she says.

She is swimming faster than ever, basically self-coached these days, and still analysing away.

She uses underwater tapes of the world's best to try to discover their secrets. The TV people who made a recent documentary on her provided tapes that showed her she was dropping her knees and causing drag.

"Other people can tell me what they like, but I have to see it and feel it myself, then I can quickly fix it. Swimming is about timing, rhythm and feel."

There is a straightforward honesty to Jeffs that is endearing.

She seems comfortable now, and her relationship with Garlick plays an important part, although she feels uncomfortable that as a top New Zealand athlete, she still struggles to support herself fully.

And while the emotional pain may have gone, there are still physical problems from the 1995 car crash.

Her trainer in Wellington reckoned she would end up bent over double in old age if she did not do specific rehabilitation work, and numbness still strikes her legs and toes.

Employment as a personal swim trainer in Wellington has got her through some tough times.

Through it, she meets others trying to turn their lives around, as she has done, and draws as much inspiration from the experience as they do.

"I know I'm on the right path. I'm proud that I've been able to keep doing what I really want to do. I've never felt I've reached where I really want to be as a swimmer. If I'd hung up the togs, chucked it in, I would have regretted that. I didn't want that hanging over my head."