Tan on rebuilding path

After overseeing the National Training Centre (NTC) for five years, Gary Tan will make the step up to become Singapore's swimming head coach until the end of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In its bid to make the Republic "a world class aquatic nation", Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) president Lee Kok Choy said the governing body conducted a comprehensive search, which yielded 26 applicants worldwide, including coaches of top Olympians in Europe and Australia, before settling on Tan.

Tan, 39 and a former national swimmer, was part of the backroom staff that helped Singapore swimmers capture 42 gold medals at the 2017 and 2019 SEA Games.

The squad also achieved their best result at the Asian Games with two golds, one silver and three bronzes in 2018, when he was also named Coach of the Year at the Singapore Sports Awards.

Lee said: "Gary impressed us the most and displayed he has gained the expertise after working under (former national coaches) Sergio Lopez and Stephan Widmer in the last seven years.

"We believe that Gary is the best fit amongst all the candidates to influence the NTC and affiliate clubs, to mentor local coaches, to continue to bring forth world-class expertise through his connection with leading experts in the world, to adapt and relate to the local swimming ecosystem of athletes, coaches, and clubs.

"We hope his appointment will inspire more local coaches to take up coaching as a profession and follow his pathway to be a world-class high-performance coach here."

Tan will continue to act as NTC head coach until a replacement is found.

The last local to head the coaching set-up was Ang Peng Siong from 2009 to 2012.

With the SEA, Asian and Commonwealth Games coming up, Lee's target for Tan is to retain Singapore's position as the top swimming nation in Asean, and for all participating swimmers to record personal bests at these meets.

The national head coach position had been vacant since October after the SSA and Widmer mutually agreed to terminate his contract.

The Australian, who was also SSA's performance director, had gone on overseas leave before the Tokyo Olympics opened on July 23 and did not return after his leave period expired in October.

He had also appeared in a promotional video published by China-based LJ Swimming Club that claimed he had joined the Beijing-based outfit in August, despite his SSA contract running till Dec 31.

Singapore swimmers had a disappointing campaign in Tokyo, with Olympic champion Joseph Schooling failing to retain his 100m butterfly gold, while Quah Ting Wen and her brother Zheng Wen did not advance out of their respective heats.

Tan said he is "living my dream to be able to lead the development of swimming in my home country", and noted the aim is to "achieve sustained podium success at Asian, Olympic and world championships, through... the development of our clubs, athletes and coaches".

He acknowledged the challenges from Covid-19, national service and juggling of sports and studies, and will work on building a system to retain talent.

He also said that there are ongoing discussions to work out a programme for NS enlistee Zheng Wen to be able to train, and the same would be done for Schooling, who is set to enlist next month, if he wishes to continue competing.

Tan added: "We will need to rebuild a core group of swimmers through a system-based approach in both the clubs and the NTC, giving our swimmers access to an elite training environment on a daily basis.

"I also want to empathise with and empower our athletes by giving them a bigger voice to share their concerns and needs."

According to Lee, the SSA is also close to finalising its candidate for the artistic swimming head coach position, while it is still in the hunt for a water polo technical director and national women's head coach.