Jane Figueiredo Joins Mel Marshall in UK Sport Female Coach Mentoring Program

Four of Britain’s leading aquatics coaches will participate in a new UK Sport programme that is designed to boost representation of women across top-level sport. The program kicked off on Thursday.

Diving coach Jane Figueiredo and swimming coach Mel Marshall are among the elite female coaches who will serve as mentors to a group of 19 up-and-coming female coaches in an effort to help guide them over the hump and into elite sport coaching – an area traditionally dominated by male coaches. Marshall was previously confirmed as part of the program, with Figueiredo joining the project at the last minute.

Jen Leeming of the Edinburgh Diving Club and swim coach Danielle Brayson are among the 19 mentees in the program. The pilot round of the program will last for 6 months – until the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in July.

At present, approximately only 10 per cent of coaching positions within the high-performance community in the UK are held by women. The first target of UK Sport’s long-term plan is to ensure that by the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024, the number of female coaches available to Team GB and ParalympicsGB has more than doubled to 25 percent.

The mentor-mentee relationships cut primarily across sports, with a goal of taking a bigger picture view of elite sport.

Aquatic Mentorships:

• Jane Figueiredo (diving) will mentor: Christine Harrison-Bloomfield (athletics), Jody Kime (artistic gymnastics), Lisa Letchford (hockey)
• Paula Dunn: Nicola Benavente (rowing), Hannah Brown (canoeing)
• Mel Marshall (swimming) will mentor: Leah Crane (climbing), Monica Greenwood (cycling), Sarah Kelleher (hockey), Coral Nourrice (athletics)
• Kate Howey (judo) will mentor: Jenny Leeming (diving), Shani Palmer (athletics), Jo Ryding (alpine skiing)
• Bex Milnes (paratriathlon): Danielle Brayson (swimming), Naomi Johnston (cycling)
• Claire Morrison (boccia) will mentor: Katie Arup (fencing), Lysa Jones (golf)
• Tracy Whittaker-Smith (trampoline) will mentor: Emma Trott (cycling), Laura Turner-Alleyne (athletics), Christy Mackinnon (alpine skiing)
• Karen Brown (field hockey) will act as a mentor to all

Figueiredo was until 2014 the head diving coach at the University of Houston. The Zimbabwe native was named the NCAA Diving Coach of the Year four times (2001, 2003, 2009, 2010) and coached a number of international divers, including multiple divers to Olympic medals.

In 2014, she moved to London to start a high performance diving center at the London Olympic Aquatics Centre where she became the coach of Olympic medalist Tom Daley. Figueiredo coached Daley to a 2016 Olympic bronze medal on platform, matching his result from four years earlier, and two further World Championship titles.

“I’m so humbled and honoured to be a part of this UK Sport leadership programme, aiming to add increasing representation of female coaches in the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Figueiredo said. “This programme speaks to my passion for mentoring and helping female coaches in all sports realise their dreams of coaching at the highest levels. I can’t wait to have a positive influence with the female coaches and share my knowledge and experience with them, so they may someday be at the top of their profession.”

Marshall is best-known as the head coach of Olympic gold medalist and World Record holder Adam Peaty. A 2004 Olympian herself, she was the head coach at the City of Derby Swimming Club, where she first began coaching Peaty at the age of 12. In 2016, both she and Peaty left that club to train at the Loughborough National Swimming Centre, where Marshall is now a lead coach. She also coaches Olympic hopefuls Anna Hopkin, Luke Greenbank, Sarah Vasey, and Harriet West.

Danielle Brayson, one of two aquatics mentees, is an assistant performance coach at City of Glasgow Swim Team and trained Louis Lawlor to an S14 bronze medal in the 100 backstroke at the 2019 World Para-Swimming Championships. Meanwhile, Jen Leeming, the Edinburgh Diving Club’s diving performance coach counts among her trainees European medalist James Heatly and FINA Grand Prix medal-winning pair Gemma McArthur and Lucas Thomson. She also coached Grace Reid to an Olympic berth in 2016.

Reid now works with Figueiredo.

“It’s a real privilege to be on the program,” Brayson said. “I strongly believe that female coaches can have a big role on the world stage and I’m looking forward to challenging boundaries, including my own, and learning from some outstanding role models and mentors across a number of sports. This is an exciting opportunity for me and I can’t wait to get started.”