Swimming New Zealand has made two significant mistakes over the past decade that have led to the damning Sparc report.
The first was the decision to encourage most of the elite swimmers to shift to Auckland to train at the Millennium Institute.
This has had a detrimental affect on the development of the sport in the regions by taking away the elite swimmers whom the younger competitors aspire to follow.
There was always a buzz during training at Moana Pool when double Olympic gold medallist Danyon Loader was in his prime.
Young swimmers like Liz van Welie and Jonathan Duncan were inspired to rise through the ranks to represent New Zealand at the Olympic Games.
Others like Sam Caradus broke New Zealand junior records, won national junior titles and came close to the big time.
The golden glow of Loader's performances rubbed off on the younger swimmers who were keen to emulate his deeds.
There is excitement at Moana Pool today among the young swimmers in the squads of Waves coach Andy Adair, Gennadiy Labara's Osca squad and Punch Tremaine's young group.
The swimmers have specialist coaching and their performances have been promising at national level. But what they lack is the constant presence of a star like Loader or Anna Wilson to give them the confidence they can also reach the higher stage.
The chance to train with and talk daily to a star is what is lacking at Moana Pool at the moment.
A swimmer with the prestige of Loader could ignite some of the younger swimmers to lift themselves to the elite level.
They just need that spark of inspiration to realise what they can achieve if they work hard.
When she was chief coach, Jan Cameron attempted to get most of the elite swimmers to transfer to Auckland.
But it has not worked out well for Otago swimmers who have gone north to train at the Millennium Institute.
Jonathan Duncan went north after the 2000 Olympics but did not continue in competitive swimming for long after this.
Andrew McMillan was on the verge of breaking through as a pool swimmer when he left for Auckland but failed to make teams for the Commonwealth or Olympic Games.
He was coached by Duncan Laing at Moana Pool when he finished fifth in the 200m butterfly at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006.
The second major folly of Swimming New Zealand was to make it mandatory for swimmers wanting to make the elite teams to reach the qualifying standard in the final of the New Zealand open championships.
Athletics also has tough qualifying standards for the top teams but has a more liberal time frame in which to achieve the performances.
Making everything depend on one race makes it too tough. Any elite sportsman can have an off day. If it comes on the night of the national championships it is just bad luck and they are left at home.
But not everything is doom and gloom for New Zealand swimming. At the Commonwealth Games in Delhi last year New Zealand swimmers won six medals - four silver and two bronze.
It was only one medal behind the record tally of seven medals for an away-from-home Commonwealth Games recorded at Victoria, Canada, in 1994.
Loader won four of those medals.
