Winning swimming was tough in PNG

Richard Jones

PNG produced many fine athletes during the 1960s and 70s, but few swimmers of note. Unlike disciplines such as track and field, weight lifting, the football codes, softball, boxing and even lawn bowls where leading competitors mushroomed, the ranks of top class swimmers were decidedly slender.

Prime among those late sixties aquatic competitors who did excel in the pool were breaststroker Toby Tovitolon, freestyler Oala Moi and the Mae Verave sisters from Marshall Lagoon in the Central District. Tovitolon captained the PNG swim team at Moresby’s South Pacific Games in 1969.

Since then there have been a number of outstanding swimmers representing PNG at international meets, not least Ryan Pini who won gold in the 100m butterfly at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006.

It was always a surprise to me that PNG didn’t produce more local swimmers of note. On any given day in the country’s coastal areas, scores of children of all ages could be found leaping in and out of the sea.

But pool swimming demands real discipline. Countless hours of training. It’s a demanding sport and, as I wrote in a Post-Courier feature in December 1976, perhaps the required strict training regimen discouraged many potential PNG swim stars.

Dedicated coaches can train youngsters in basic stroke skills and techniques, even for something as demanding as butterfly swimming. Once those techniques have been mastered thousands of laps need to be swum so that fitness and durability can be built up. The long, hard training grind might have been just too much for many aspiring PNG teenagers.

Comments

[Paul Capon]

Hi, swim fans! I lived next door to the Taurama swimming pool with my family in the early to late 70's. I learnt to swim under the guidance of Jo Kuth. Our family along with many other keen swim fans attended so many wonderful carnivals.

A lasting memory of Jo Kuth is the unwavering Austrian accent which rolled out some interestingly encouraging stroke improvement commands such as, "Come on you fincense (princess), what do you call that!" My sisters Julie, Michelle and I swam every day, morning and night, with other swimming kids. To name a few, the Lucas's, Corcorans, White's, Moyles, Love's. Nigel Cluer was also a family friend as was Charlie Martin.

I often wonder the same as Richard: how did it take so long for PNG to produce another gold medal swimmer such as Ryan Pini? The answer I believe lies in the dedication of the entire Pini family, particularly Kevin and Sarina, who with no official help sponsored and supported Ryan to achieve a degree of recognition for his homeland. Well done!

[Colin Huggins]

Regarding the young swimmer at Gagidu circa 1966.
I found a diary note from that year. The young boy was not a local from the area. His father was a policeman posted to Finschaafen. Unfortunately I can find no name. From the photos that I still have there is no photo of the classes either, however, I think he came from the Papuan side of the country.

[Richard E. Jones]

Spot on, Sue. If you receive a copy of the PNG Association's Una Voce newsletter - the March '08 issue - you'll see I mention Joe Kuth in the yarn. Keith has trimmed his copy of the story for space reasons.
Kuth was the coach of the 1969 Moresby Games swim team. Toby Tovitolon was the captain as mentioned in the article above. Some of the leading male swimmers in Kuth's '69 Games team were Nigel Cluer (breaststroke), Neil Bostock (freestyle) and Max Mowen (butterfly).
Six years on, Charlie Martin won 8 swimming medals at the 1975 Sth. Pac. Games in Guam. Four of these were gold. But these were all swimmers with at least one expatriate parent, just like your son.

There were few locals of any note, despite the best efforts of Colin Huggins in coastal New Guinea and Kuth, his wife and like minded coaches in Moresby and elsewhere.
We'll have to google" Pacific Games (the modern name for the old South Pacific Games) and see whether we can isolate the names of PNG swimmers of note in the results columns.

[Sue Ward]

In the early 70's there was a very active swimming program being run by Joe Kuth and his wife from Club Germania in Port Moresby at the Boroko Olympic pool. Children and youths from all nationalities were being encouraged to improve their times, being urged to compete against themselves. Carnivals were run weekly on a Friday night and reward certificates were issued for better times with celebrations all round when a significant individual achievement was reached. The club had a wonderful atmosphere and communities were involved with fancy dress fundraisers and barbecues. My son Brad became an excellent swimmer there, being selected at the age of 11 to be part of the South Pacific Games squad in 1973, along with several Papua New Guineans. What happened to that program?

[Colin Huggins]

Your article on PNG swimmers is very interesting. As you state, it is rather amazing that PNG did not produce swimmers of note especially from the coastal and island regions.

I was a very keen swimmer in my youth - GPS, club etc and for four of my years in PNG I was based on the coast and spent much of my free time, and for that matter school time, in the lagoons around Dregerhafen.

In my third year at Gagidu (Finschhafen) I discovered a young kid (Grade 2) who was a swimmer. So I gave him swimming lessons and he was as keen as mustard and very good. He was just one of those naturals and I am sure had he had the opportunities that are afforded to kids in Australia he would have been top class. Your article made me think ‘I wonder what happened to him’.

Unfortunately my last two years in PNG were in the highlands of the Morobe district - Wau and Pindiu – which ended my idyllic swimming in lagoons and water skiing.