No winners in Fouhy train wreck The saddest thing about the retirement of Ben Fouhy yesterday was that there were no winners.
Those happy that the nettlesome Fouhy has removed himself from kayaking would do well to look up the meaning of pyrrhic victory.
Everyone loses here. The list is long and distinguished and starts with the national sports funding agency Sparc.
They were late on the scene of the Canoe Racing NZ crash and, like the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, went through the motions of administering life support without fully committing themselves to the process.Worse, having looked as if they might have stitched something together that would have kept one of the country's premier athletes in his sport, they appear to have blown with the wind when the pressure came on.It is understood Sparc believed the rules of engagement with Fouhy changed when he did some work with CRNZ coach Gordon Walker, signalling a reintegration into the national programme that cancelled out the need for ring-fenced funding. Nobody in the Fouhy camp believes that argument bears any serious scrutiny.
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