SINGAPORE - The Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) on Thursday (Jan 9) appointed Miho Yoshida as the national artistic swimming head coach.
The 49-year-old Japanese, who is on a one-year contract, fills the void left by the abrupt departure of former head coach Anastasia Goutseva, who quit in October 2021, 11 months before her two-year contract was due to run out. The Belarusian left to return to Greece to sort out her permanent residency there.
Yoshida is the fourth national coach for artistic swimming in less than four years, with the post also previously filled by Maryna Tsimashenka and Geraldine Narvaez.
The SSA said in a press statement that Yoshida, who was meant to join the association as a coach to work with Goutseva, will now assume the head coach role instead.
Her immediate task will be to prepare Singapore's artistic swimmers to qualify for and compete at the Sept 10-25 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
Singapore's women's duet and team placed seventh at the 2018 Asian Games and they will be looking to equal or better that ranking.
Said Yoshida: "I am very honoured to be appointed as head coach of Singapore. I will do my best to contribute even more to the rapid progress of artistic swimming in Singapore.
"I look forward to the development of the team and achieve the targets that we will set for the Asian Games."
Yoshida was most recently the head coach of South Korea and led them to a sixth-place finish in the women's duet and team at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta.
She was also previously an assistant coach with Synchro Canada and head coach of the Japanese national team, whom she led at the 2010 Asian Games, 2012 London Olympics and the 2013 FINA World Championships.
Steve Chew, SSA's vice-president for artistic swimming said: "Her coaching experience and credentials speak for themselves and having worked with some of the top artistic swimmers in the world, we believe that she will be able to continue putting in place the building blocks for Singapore artistic swimming to reach the next level."
