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2018 SWAMMY AFRICAN COACH OF THE YEAR: ROCCO MEIRING
Rocco Meiring of University of Pretoria/Tuks Swimming is SwimSwam’s 2018 Swammy Award winner for African Coach of the Year. Most notably under his tutelage is our Female African Swimmer of the Year, Tatjana Schoenmaker who broke out impressively in 2018, making her presence known on the international breaststroking field.
At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Schoenmaker set the African Record in the women’s 50m breaststroke for 4th place, but medaled in the 2 other breaststroke events. Schoenmaker won the 200m breast in a new African Record, while also taking the 100m breast gold in her 3rd African Record of the Games.
Schoenmaker didn’t flinch in any of those races against the likes of former British National Record holders Molly Renshaw, Choe Tutton nor Canadian Olympian Kierra Smith.
Named Tuks ‘Best Sports Coach of 2018’, former Swim South Africa’s national coaching director Meiring states that his only role in Schoenmaker’s success is to ‘unlock her full potential.’
In October of this year, Meiring commented, “My best quality as a coach is to identify young talented swimmers and get them to believe in their abilities. People don’t realise how difficult it can be to find ways to get the swimmers you coach to keep on improving. I am on a constant quest to find new information. The better Tatjana, the bigger my challenge becomes,” he said. (Pretoria East Rekord)
