Courtesy: Repton School
Repton School has appointed Scott Talbot as its Director of Swimming from September 2020.
Scott has coached swimmers competing at the Beijing, London and Rio Olympic Games and was previously the New Zealand national team coach, winning the coveted New Zealand Swimming Coach of the Year award in 2010. With the Australian national team since 2013 and as High Performance coach for the highly prestigious Nunawading Swimming Club in Melbourne, he is currently working with athletes preparing for this summer’s Tokyo Games, before taking up his post at Repton.
As a backstroke specialist, Scott represented New Zealand from 1999 to 2006, competing in the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and Athens Olympics in 2004, as well as the Commonwealth Games and World Championships.
He comes from a background of competitive swimming – both parents were very successful and highly acclaimed international coaches. His father has been both Australian and Canadian Head Coach at numerous Olympics and his mother was an Olympic silver-medallist for Australia and Head Coach for New Zealand and the Australian Paralympian Team.
This appointment follows Repton School’s recent announcement of an ambitious new swimming programme which will see Repton positioning itself as a nationally-ranked performance centre and community club – and Talbot will be spearheading this exciting initiative.
Scott is very enthusiastic about the potential of his new role: “It is a great honour to have this opportunity to work at Repton. I am really excited by the School’s vision and ambition, and by the challenge of creating a leading performance and community swimming programme – there is so much that we can achieve as a team of athletes, staff and coaches. And as a family we are very much looking forward to our move to the UK and to Derbyshire.”
At his disposal will be the pools at Repton School and Foremarke Hall, as well as strengthening and conditioning suites and other facilities in the redeveloped Repton School Sports Centre. This was re-opened in November 2019 by Adam Peaty, Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth Champion and world-record holder, who, with coach Mel Marshall, used the Repton pool as his main training venue in the five years leading up to his historic gold medal at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Mark Semmence, Headmaster of Repton, comments, “We are absolutely delighted to have appointed a coach of Scott’s outstanding calibre and his experience of working with some of the top swimmers in the world will be an inspiration to our young athletes. He brings a wealth of coaching expertise, which will allow us to realise our shared vision of building a community club and aspiring to national and international success.”