John Leonard, head of the American Swimming Coaches Association, writing to his British counterpart organisation, has explained why he thinks the Great has gone out of Great Britain - and there will be plenty who agree, like a certain Bill Sweetenham, out there somewhere in the world no longer delivering the messages to Britain than Britain needed to hear.

Leonard writes, in a criticism aimed not so much at coaches as at those who govern sport: 'They have 'administrated themselves' into total and complete mediocre coaching performance. Everyone is scared of their own shadow...then they bring in coaches from outside Britain and basically say, 'well, these rules don't apply to you guys, unless you're too tough'.

'How do you lose an Empire? Lose your Boldness. Bow to administrators instead of creators. The Coaching TALENT is there, but it is BURIED under tons of CRAP that has nothing to do with coaching. If you want to be great, you have to operate 'outside the box'. If you don't let your coaches operate outside that box, ipso facto, you will not get great performance.'

There is more of that to be read at the BSCTA.