According to her Twitter account, Zimbabwe swimmer Kirsty Coventry is moving back to the US to train with her former coach Kim Brackin, who is now the head coach for the women at the University of Texas.
Coventry first worked with Brackin when the swimmer was at Auburn and Brackin was an assistant coach. Coventry left Brackin to return home to Africa to continue her training some time after the 2009 World Championships (though Coventry took a bit of a break from the sport in 2010). This past summer, Coventry went to train in Monaco at the request of the former Charlene Wittstock, who is a former Olympian from South Africa with whom Coventry had become friends (before Wittstock became the Princess of Monaco). At the time, she stated that she intended to remain in Monaco until the Olympics.
While training with Brackin, Coventry earned all of her 7 Olympic medals (including the last two golds in the 200 back), and 8 World Championship medals.
The move is a low-risk one for Coventry, as she hasn’t had much in the way of success since leaving Brackin. This past summer, at the Shanghai World Championships, Coventry failed to even make a single final.
Coventry Tweeted that she was returning to Brackin because “I trust her 100 percent and I know she has my back!”
The swimmers thank the coaches every time they get in the water and do their best.Their success in the pool is a direct reflection of their talent, commitment,drive, and yes the coaches who inspire them to push themselves to achieve their best and better it time and time again.
Kirsty and Kim Brackin have a very special relationship and have enjoyed a great deal of success working together.Every swimmer and coach should be so lucky.
Good Luck Kirsty….and WELCOME BACK TO TEXAS!
Predicta, I would imagine that’s because we Aussies don’t have an NCAA-type college competition etc which seems to be a big focus for most American’s graduating high school, and by the time most American’s have finished college and want to aim for the olympics, one might assume they have become a reasonably competitive chance for a spot, and then why change a winning formula?
Brint: “The credit goes to the coaches, not the country”
Well Brint …… I seldom hear foreign swimmers thank their US coaches during the Games either. As far as…. “owing the US” …. we will have to agree to disagree on the opportunities they have received in the US to develope their talent.
Personally, I wish we could cap the amount of foreign athletes on a team at NCAAs who receive scholarship. Rather we funnel more money and more opportunity to developing US talent whenever possible.
asimfan…. that’s nice of the Aussies…. but we still don’t see the best US talent leaving for years when they graduate from High School and then coming back years later to represent the US… Read more »
“Often public universities don’t have the money to pay for an international student’s tuition, because it is even more than an out of state student’s tuition.”
Would you please elaborate Shwimmin? As far as I know, out of state tuition is out of state tuition, international or not. There would be an additional fee for the required health insurance which may be an additional 2K but otherwise, in my experience there are no other additional charges for foreign students.
In the case of France, their success as a national power only really started when their home trained swimmers started to step up. As it is, I believe only Bousquet and Lefert are truly US based. And these swimmers don’t owe the US anything. I’m sure they thank their American college coaches, but its not like they came because they want the support of USA Swimming. The credit goes to the coaches, not the country.
As well as Sun Yang and Park Tae-Hwan, for example, I do believe?
Australian coaches trained groups of top british, chinese and korean swimmers who won gold medals in the last olympics and world championships and who defeated aussie own swimmers.
Alshammar has also been training in Australia since for a number of years now.
That’s interesting, but doesn’t establishes much of an equality of top swimming talent transfering to and from the US and abroad. France, S. Africa, Brazil, etc…. have benefited quite nicely this decade from US programs at international competition. I suppose when top upcoming US talent like Murphy or Conger start leaving the US for other countries, and then come back to represent the US at the Games, the “give and take” may seem equitable.