The Royal Dutch Swimming Federation has missed its mark with an overly commercial approach

The 2021 Olympic Games look set to be a disappointment from a swimming perspective. According to technical director André Cats, the “entirely realistic goal” of winning three swimming medals is still achievable through the open water events later this week.

In doing so, the Royal Dutch Swimming Federation is, in my view, masking the failing policy it has been pursuing over the past few years. With multiple signs pointing to the fact that there are “still” no big names on the horizon, it’s clear that the vision for the future set out years ago simply isn’t working. 

The KNZB, one of the board members of the Nederlandse Raad Zwemveiligheid (an organisation that claims to hold the exclusive right to issue swim diplomas), took a commercial turn a few years back when it came to swimming lessons — a market it has no business being in. But, so the argument went, this was the best way to build swimming proficiency.

The name: “Superspetters”. The goal: earning the ABC diploma in ten months. Thanks to the substantial pool of subsidy money poured into it, an image was created that this is “the” best way to learn to swim quickly and well. The emphasis lies on front crawl and backstroke. And those, as it happens, are two important competitive strokes.

In my view, the KNZB has coloured outside the lines by aiming its efforts at swimming education in a way that makes competitive strokes the foundation of the swim diploma. During the big marketing campaign at the time, prominent names — top swimmers affiliated with the KNZB — were brought in. Suddenly, they were the experts in swimming lessons. 

As, among other things, the owner of my own swim school specialising in small groups with plenty of individual attention, we regularly see children coming in at the C diploma level with a Superspetters diploma already in hand. Those ten months turned out not to be quite so ideal for water safety after all.

During the mission to get swimming lessons up and running again, I clashed repeatedly with the major federations, including the KNZB, which placed the financial interests of things like subsidy money and the SPUK IJZ scheme for municipal property above the interests of the swimming lessons themselves. Because the large commercial parties that operate municipal property sit on the boards of organisations such as Watervrij and WIZZ, this makes their independence far from trustworthy.

The KNZB needs to get back to focusing on national water safety, on supporting the clubs that are meant to feed elite sport, on caring about the future of swimming in the Netherlands, on professionally training swimming instructors and putting its expertise to use for that purpose, and on being a federation for all the swimming disciplines the Netherlands has to offer. 

Stop with the commercial partnerships that fill the coffers and are all about wanting to belong and be seen out front, and start making yourself genuinely useful. If that becomes the focus, with directors who have a real heart for the sport of swimming, then competitive swimming will be in far better hands in the future.