Photo credit Gareth Cooke (additional design by Tina Tiller)
Photo credit Gareth Cooke (additional design by Tina Tiller)

SportsMay 20, 2023

Here’s what happens to your body when you swim for 33 hours straight

Photo credit Gareth Cooke (additional design by Tina Tiller)
Photo credit Gareth Cooke (additional design by Tina Tiller)

Alex Casey talks to ultramarathon swimmer Jono Ridler about exactly what happens when you swim in the sea for nearly two days straight – and why he put himself through it. 

As Jono Ridler ploughed through the water on the second night of his ultramarathon swim, he caught a glimpse of something strange in the darkness of the Hauraki Gulf. On the nearby support boat, a snowman and a giant potato stood side by side. Then, around him, picture frames and solar panels began to bob on the surface of the sea. When he peered below, the ocean floor gleamed with luxurious courtyard tiling. Drawing on his already-dwindling energy reserves, his voice rang through the night air: “Are you guys real?” 

“At that stage it was definitely getting harder to determine exactly what was going on,” Ridler laughs over Zoom, safely back on dry land. “I’ve never had hallucinations before but I’ve also never stayed awake for that period of time before.” When the snowman appeared, Ridler had been awake for 36 hours, most of them spent attempting to swim 100km between Great Barrier Island and Auckland. He was exhausted and hypothermic, battling 30 knot winds and two metre swells that threatened to bring his new fantasy friends crashing down on him. 

The first question, of course, is why do it? Ridler first got into open water swimming in his early 20s after completing a swim across Auckland Harbour. “I’ve always had a bit of a leaning for endurance activities, and just wanting to see what I can do with my body and my mind,” he explains. “What is really compelling for me is just that sense of adventure and total lack of limitations – just being able to go as far as you want to go, or as far as you can go.” The swims got longer, the obsession grew, and eventually he settled on his next big 100km goal. 

Jono Ridler, ultramarathon swimmer, pre-hallucination (Photo: Supplied)

As well as a distance goal, the swim needed a purpose. Given he has spent a decade in the proverbial drink, Ridler has watched the health of the ocean plummet in front of his eyes. “I definitely notice how cloudy it is, it’s very different to a healthy ocean where the water is really clear.” Then there’s the sewage overflow, the dearth of fish eggs, and the heaving kina barrens. “Kina don’t have the predators to keep them in check anymore,” he says, explaining that crayfish are basically extinct in the Gulf and snapper are always “wiped out” through overfishing.

Partnering with conservation charity Live Ocean, Ridler got to work preparing to swim the equivalent of the distance from Auckland to Huntly. He swam for at least eight hours every Saturday and Sunday for months, back and forth down Takapuna beach. “I swam at night pretty often too. So either through the night, or starting really early in the morning. I’d also go out at night after work – go home, get my liquid feeds together, drive out to Takapuna, swim overnight, and come back early in the morning.” When the weather wasn’t playing ball, it was eight hours in the pool. 

After months of intensive training, Ridler took the plunge in late April. The final meal on land was cooked oats and beetroot juice (slow release carbs and natural performance-enhancing nitrates) while he went over the plans one more time with his crew. With a support team including two medics, multiple “feeders”, videographers and skippers for the support vessels, this was hardly a quick dip at Herne Bay. He was then slathered in nappy rash cream, lanolin and petroleum jelly for chafing and warmth – marathon rules state no wetsuits allowed. 

Jono Ridler swims the Gulf (Photo: Gareth Cooke)

Once he began swimming, Ridler would periodically be fed by the support team, who would biff a bottle of some delightful sounding “hot liquid feed” using a rope and carabiner in his direction. “I would chug it down, they might say a few words, I might say a few words back and then I’m back on my way.” Alas, the feeding plan had to be thrown out on the first day, as Ridler encountered some debilitating “gut distress” that caused severe pain. Once he got through it, he asked if he could have some of the support crew’s dinner (meatballs) instead. They obliged. 

The euphemistic mention of “gut distress” raises another question that many will have: what about the toilet? “Going number ones is pretty easy, because you can just go as you swim,” shrugs Ridler. “If you’ve done it enough times, and you’re well enough practised, then you can actually keep swimming and pee at the same time without slowing down at all. There’s a bit of an art to it.” As for number twos? “There was never any urge. I guess my digestive system just changed during that period and catered for the fact that I was horizontal for most of it.” 

Aside from the small variations in snacks – Ridler also enjoyed some “choccie bars” and baby food pouches of mashed potato along the way – there wasn’t much else to break up the monotony of the swim. I ask if all the time alone led to any profound epiphanies. “If it did, I don’t remember them,” says Ridler. “You’ve often got pretty hollow thoughts, because you’re just trying to keep your mind from derailing you.” A Ridler remix of “one, two, buckle my shoe,” is one of the only brainwaves he remembers having out there: 

“One, two, didgeridoo

Three, four, knock on the door

Five, six, pick up sticks

Seven, eight, don’t be late

Nine, 10, do it again”

It was a refrain that got him well into the second night of his swim, but the Seussian sing-song quickly gave way to the aforementioned mirages of snowmen and oversized tubers. Even after he emerged from the water, the hallucinations lingered in the bubbling and warping hospital wallpaper around him. Visions aside, that night also brought with it gnarly waves that made it difficult for Ridler to feed from the boat – the taut feeding rope risked pulling him along (against the rules) and (perhaps more important) the whole boat risked crashing down on him. 

Ridler swims through the night (Photo: Joshua McCormack)

The swim was eventually called off at the 99.1km mark, not that Ridler really knew what was going on. “We were coming in and were probably 300 metres offshore, trying to navigate some big waves, but I wasn’t exactly sure what I was swimming for,” he recalls. With a buddy nearby guiding the way, Ridler asked “Where are we going?” and was told to simply follow the light. “So I just aimed for that, I couldn’t really see anything else.” When his legs eventually found the sand they nearly gave out. “I was pretty fragile and in a lot of pain.”

A video on his Instagram shows Ridler emerging from the darkness, unknowingly having just set the record for ultra distance marathon swimming in New Zealand. He staggers slowly towards the light to subdued cheers, as if those around him are trying not to startle a baby deer. The people around him are supportive, but keeping their distance – marathon rules determine that the swimmer must cross the waterline unassisted. Ridler swaggers and then stands stock still, absolutely baffled. “Yeeeeahhhh Jono!!!” someone yells from off camera. 

Eventually, Ridler gingerly made it past the waterline and then was guided straight into a nearby ambulance. “Obviously I was hypothermic,” he casually recounts. “The temperature reading couldn’t even give an exact number because it was so far off the scale.” He was checked into hospital to be monitored, have some blood tests, and get hooked on an IV to rehydrate.  “I didn’t actually get to rest so much, because they started pumping me full of fluid and I had to keep buzzing the nurse to go to the gents every hour.” Two three, no longer pee free. 

A swollen Ridler in hospital after the swim. (Photos: Instagram)

Ridler left hospital the next day, but the physical impact of the swim remained. Puffy eyes, “wicked cankles” and a bruised pinky finger were some of the souvenirs, but the piece de resistance was what Ridler describes as a “totally new” tongue. “When I first came out of the water my tongue was all white and there were chunks missing off it,” he explains. “Then it got really sensitive and I lost that entire top layer.” Now that the swelling and sensitivity has gone down, Ridler is quite chipper about his glowed-up tongue. “It looks quite nice and healthy.”

Now back on dry land, Ridler is already dreaming up his next big swim, but isn’t ready to share any of the details just yet. “Right now, I’m trying to give some attention to some of the things that I neglected during the training journey, like spending time with my wife,” he says. “I got out and mowed the lawns on the weekend and, you know, the grass was basically waist high with Pokémon jumping out.” He may not have had any huge epiphanies to bring home from his swim, but has some wisdom for anyone out there holding onto a “crazy idea” in secret. 

“Everyone gets these little voices in their head, but you’ve really got to pay attention to them,” he says. “Because those little voices are trying to steer you in the right direction. You just have to believe that you can do things that seem a bit beyond you, put yourself out there and dedicate yourself to it.” As Ridler himself has proven, that’s the kind of self belief and determination that can lead you to some pretty incredible places – a new New Zealand record, a surprise snowman encounter, perhaps even a beautiful brand new tongue. 

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Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

SportsMay 19, 2023

The naming rights deals of New Zealand’s stadiums, ranked

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

Where does ‘Go Media Stadium’ sit in the history of this country’s biggest sporting grounds getting new names for money?

First it got new blue seats, now it has a new name. When the Warriors play their next home game in Auckland, they will officially be playing at “Go Media Stadium”, formerly known as Mount Smart, after a new naming rights sponsorship deal was announced between the outdoor advertising company and Auckland Stadiums earlier this week.

Naming rights deals are one of the small joys of following sport in the professional era. You never know when you’re going to wake up and find out the team you’ve supported for years now plays at a stadium that sounds like it was sponsored by the last dregs of the Public Interest Journalism Fund in a desperate attempt to boost industry morale.

Some new stadium names end up enhancing the general vibe so much you forget what they ever used to be called. Others you go to great lengths to avoid ever having to say out loud. So where does Go Media Stadium fit into the history of New Zealand stadiums’ naming rights sponsorships? There’s only one way to find out and that’s by ranking them all from least to biggest improvement.

(Parameters: Stadiums only – NO INDOOR ARENAS. Must host or have hosted regular first-class rugby or cricket.)

27. Semenoff Stadium

It might sound like the name of a specialist cleaning product but the home of Northland rugby is in fact named after Whangārei heavy transport magnate cum former mayor Stan Semenoff, whose company the Stan Semenoff Group secured the naming rights to Okara Park in 2019.

26. CET Arena

The Central Energy Trust or CET Arena sounds a little too close to “CTE” for comfort – NZ Rugby and the ACC should probably put in a combined bid to be revert it back to Palmerston North Showgrounds. The home of the Manawatu Turbos was also known as FMG Stadium until 2015, when the rural insurer dumped them and started sponsoring Hamilton’s rugby ground instead.

25. FMG Stadium Waikato

For most of the 20th century Hamilton had the perfect stadium name in “Rugby Park”, which it shared with Invercargill, Gisborne and every other no-nonsense city and town in the country. But a 1999 redevelopment saw it renamed Waikato Stadium before Farmers’ Mutual Group signed a 10-year naming rights deal in 2015 to rearrange the words to FMG Stadium Waikato.

24. Kennards Hire Community Oval

Twickenham has “The Stoop”; Eden Park has “Kennards Hire Community Oval”. It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, but then how many other ovals on this list are available to be hired by the community? (An earlier version of this ranking wrongly claimed that Kennards Hire Community Oval couldn’t be hired by the community. According to a spokesperson from Eden Park it actually can – including the cricket pitch – and that’s why they called it Kennards Hire Community Oval. It has been moved up one spot in the ranking to reflect this.)

23. Cello Basin Reserve

It might sound like the first three words of the secure passphrase you’ve got written down somewhere in case you ever get locked out of your crypto wallet, but Cello Basin Reserve is in fact the current name of Wellington and New Zealand’s home of test cricket. Cello is a New Zealand-based “solution-led network partner” which could honestly mean anything. (Part of the deal involved them installing wifi at the ground.)

Cello Basin Reserve (Photo: MARTY MELVILLE/AFP via Getty Images)

22. Trust Bank Park

21. WestpacTrust Park

20. Westpac Park

The changing names of Hamilton’s cricket ground from 1990-2006 tells the complete story of a trans-Tasman banking merger, which is something not many stadiums in the world can boast. It has since reverted back to its original name of Seddon Park, though if the petition I’m drafting up is successful it will soon be known as Simon Doull Stadium. 

19. WestpacTrust Stadium

18. Westpac Stadium

The Australian banking giant was already mid-takeover when it secured the naming rights to Wellington’s new stadium in 1999. The fact that it immediately became better known as “the Cake Tin” probably tells you everything you need to know about the appeal of its sponsored name.

17. ASB Baypark Stadium

16. Trustpower Baypark Stadium

If you need any further proof that banks are making too much profit, just look at how many times they feature on this list. ASB assumed naming rights of the Mount Maunganui venue that’s been home to both the Bay of Plenty Steamers and a variety of motorsports in 2013, making a very generic stadium name (“Baypark Stadium” – the “AUT University” of stadia) even more boring. Power company Trustpower took over naming rights for the stadium in 2018 and failed to offer any significant improvement.

15. Western Bay Finance Stadium

14. Bluechip Stadium

The argument for unexciting bank and power companies sponsoring your stadium: it’s a lot less stressful than being sponsored by an embattled finance company. Before ASB and Trustpower, Baypark was sponsored by Western Bay Finance (a “turbulent relationship”) and Blue Chip (“troubled”). While the latter did make quite a cool stadium name, some things just aren’t worth the hassle.

13. Navigation Homes Stadium

Growers Stadium is a perfect name for a provincial rugby stadium, right up there with Yarrow Stadium in New Plymouth and second only to the various Rugby Parks. But to keep the lights on, Pukekohe’s home of Counties Manukau rugby currently goes by the name Navigation Homes Stadium, which is so close to sounding cool and yet really, really far.

12. Bayer Growers Stadium

Global healthcare and agriculture group Bayer had the right idea when they cautiously slipped their name in front of the already perfect Growers Stadium in 2009, but in reality a new sponsor trying to keep everybody happy by adding their name to the old name rarely works. Would have been better if they’d just gone all-in and called it Bayer Stadium.

11. Forsyth Barr Stadium

When you look at the words “Forsyth Barr” what do you see? The main image it conjures for me is an old-fashioned gentleman with a conspicuous moustache. Could I be thinking of Bruce Forsyth? Steve Parr? I can’t help but feel Forsyth Barr, which is actually an investment and wealth management service, is totally the wrong vibe for New Zealand’s first and only roofed stadium.

The All Blacks train at Forsyth Barr Stadium (Photo: Phil Walter/Getty Images)

10. AMI Stadium

Something darkly ironic about Christchurch’s Lancaster Park being sponsored by an insurance company at the time it was written off beyond repair by the 2011 earthquake. This cursed moniker was then transferred to the temporary* new home of Canterbury rugby, formerly known as Rugby League Park, from 2012 to 2019.

9. QBE Stadium

As three-letter corporate acronyms go, insurance company QBE has a certain je ne sais quoi that few others can match. It’s all in the Q at the start, which makes it sound like an honour bestowed for services to North Harbour rugby (Troy Flavell, QBE). From 2014-2019, it helped the Albany sporting complex sound a lot fancier than it really is.

8. Go Media Stadium

Appreciate the sentiment, but I can’t help but feel this sets a dangerous precedent. If this is allowed then what’s to stop some disgruntled millionaire from coming along and sponsoring a Fuck The Media Stadium. Our stadia should probably have to be more impartial.

7. Coopers Catch Park

It might sound like a random A-League venue in semi-rural New South Wales but Coopers Catch Park was actually what Eden Park was called for one week in 2020 as part of an ASB marketing stunt. The bank renamed the stadium after a Kaikōura fish and chip shop doing it tough in Covid times – the sole game to be played at Coopers Catch was a Bledisloe Cup test in which the All Blacks battered the Wallabies 27-7. 

6. ECOlight Stadium

Hear me out: ECOlight Stadium is what Forsyth Stadium should be called. The energy-efficient lighting company, which sponsored Growers Stadium in Pukekohe for a couple of years in the 2010s, is a perfect vibe-match for Dunedin’s giant greenhouse – I can already hear a high country Otago accent saying “Going to the Highlanders at ECOlight at the weekend”, and it just sounds right. 

5. Orangetheory Stadium

It might sound like something that gets discussed at great length on the Joe Rogan podcast but Orangetheory is in fact the name of a gym franchise where everybody’s heart rate gets put up on a big screen. The current moniker of the Christchurch stadium originally known as Rugby League Park is one of the better stadium names in the country at the moment, though it’s arguably better if you don’t know what Orangetheory is.

4. Sky Stadium

Westpac held the naming rights to Wellington’s largest stadium pretty much from the moment it opened in 1999 until the 1st of January 2020. That should be enough time for it to form some kind of long-lasting attachment in people’s minds… and yet it’s already been forgotten because the new name is so good. It’s hard to imagine a more simple, perfect combination of words than “Sky Stadium” – sounds like a level in Super Mario Bros game.

3. Toll Stadium

“Toll Stadium” also sounds like it could be a Super Mario Bros level, but it’s the really hard one one where Bowser lives. The transport and logistics giant sponsored Whangārei’s newly-revamped Okara Park facility for most of the 2010s, lending the ground a fearsomely brutalist aura. In a fair and just world, Toll Stadium would have become the country’s most formidable rugby fortress. 

2. Ericsson Stadium

Part of the reason Go Media Stadium faces such an uphill battle to make a lasting impact is that the stadium already got it so right the first time. Cellular phone company Ericsson attached its name to Mount Smart in 1995, just in time for the Warriors inaugural season. It was a case of right place, right time – though the sponsorship ended in 2006, Ericsson remains almost as inextricably tied to the Warriors brand as DB Bitter, Vodafone and the Mad Butcher. 

Jade Stadium in 1999 (Photo: Paddy Dillon/Getty Images)

1. Jade Stadium

It took sports fans a long time to adjust to Lancaster Park’s new name back in 1998, but in hindsight there is something impossibly beautiful about the idea of a “Jade Stadium” – a phrase every bit as evocative and mysterious as London’s “Crystal Palace” football club. New Zealand software company Jade held the naming rights to the Christchurch stadium until 2007, and though it never exactly suited its industrial surrounds, Jade Stadium still stands as this country’s greatest ever stadium name.