Australian coach Peter Bishop, coach of 100m freestyle Olympic gold medalist Kyle Chalmers, has been named Head Coach of the South Australian Sports Institute (SASI). Bishop, longtime coach at Marion Swimming Club, home of not only Chalmers, but also of Olympian Josh Palmer and Paralympic champion Matthew Cowdrey, was named SASI’s Coach of the Year for 2016.
Bishop’s move is one of multiple moving parts involved in Swimming Australia’s national restructuring of its High Performance Centers. As announced earlier this month, Swimming Australia’s Podium Center Program will be reduced from 14 to now 9 High Performance Centers. This will result in high performance funding stretching further, yet the standard of the daily performance environment for athletes and coaches, as well as expectation on the centers, will increase. SASI is one of the remaining 9 centers.
Of his new appointment, Bishop says, “This new role will allow me to be 100 per cent focused on developing our most talented swimmers to be world-class and world’s best. I have really enjoyed working with the YMCA and the Marion Club, however bringing the elite squad into a dedicated program with SASI is really exciting.”
SASI Director Wes Battams states, “Peter’s appointment to SASI will give him greater capacity to sharpen his focus with existing and future South Australians aspiring for international success. Swimming Australia is really upping the ante and want to increase the quantity and quality of the support and effort put into developing world-class swimmers. We support this new initiative of Swimming Australia to create more targeted and specialised high performance training centres.”
As far as how Bishop’s move affects Marion Swimming Club, the club’s site included the following notation today, “Please read the attached press release but be assured that at the moment it is business as usual. We will be in touch with all our members in due course to explain any changes and how Pete’s new position affects our Club.”