Competitor Coach of the Month is a recurring SwimSwam feature shedding light on a U.S.-based coach who has risen above the competition. As with any item of recognition, Competitor Coach of the Month is a subjective exercise meant to highlight one coach whose work holds noteworthy context – perhaps a coach who was clearly in the limelight, or one whose work fell through the cracks a bit more among other stories. If your favorite coach wasn’t selected, feel free to respectfully recognize them in our comment section.
Bob Bowman‘s coaching prowess was on full display at the 2025 World Championships, particularly in the final of the men’s 200 IM.
One night after his star pupil, Frenchman Leon Marchand, smashed the world record in the semis (1:52.69), Bowman’s swimmers swept the medals in the final, as Marchand won gold with the second-fastest swim ever in 1:53.68, American Shaine Casas claimed silver and moved up to #4 all-time in 1:54.30, and Hungarian Hubert Kos set a big best time to snag bronze in 1:55.34.
Shaine Casas, Leon Marchand, Hubert Kos (credit: Nardia Mulkerrins)
All three swimmers train with Bowman at the University of Texas, as Marchand and Kos followed him there from Arizona State last year, while he inherited Casas, who had been a part of the pro group there previously under the now-retired Eddie Reese.
Not only did Marchand, Casas and Kos sweep the podium, but they all did so after dropping significant chunks of time. Marchand’s semi-final world record was 1.37 seconds under his previous lifetime best, Casas knocked nearly a full second (0.94) off his best time coming into the meet, and Kos dropped over a second to near the super-suited Hungarian Record held by Laszlo Cseh (1:55.18).
The men’s 200 IM was a microcosm of the week for Bowman’s swimmers, who won 10 individual medals in Singapore and added nine more on relays.
Regan Smith took on a busy schedule and walked away with four individual silver medals in the women’s 50, 100 and 200 back, and 200 fly, and finished things off by leading off the American women to a gold medal and new world record in the 4×100 medley relay.
Luke Hobson won silver in the men’s 200 free with the second-fastest time of his career, Simone Manuel won four relay medals for the Americans, including two gold and leading off the runner-up women’s 4×100 free relay, and Chris Guiliano picked up a pair of relay medals as well.
As for the three swimmers from the men’s 200 IM final, Marchand also won gold in dominant fashion in the 400 IM (4:04.73) and added a silver medal on the French men’s 4×100 medley relay, while Kos had one of the best performances of the entire meet in the men’s 200 back, winning gold with a new European Record of 1:53.19 to mark the fifth-fastest swim ever and the third-fastest ever in a textile suit. Casas added a bronze medal after swimming in the prelims of the U.S. men’s 4×100 free relay.
Another Bowman-trained swimmer, Carson Foster, was a medal hopeful in both men’s medley events but was forced to scratch the 200 IM final, and later the prelims of the 400 IM, after tweaking a tendon in his ankle. Earlier in the meet, he placed 5th in the men’s 200 fly.
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I’m sorry. You shouldn’t get coach of month when you are vacationing in Paris while other coaches are doing all the hard day to day grind work in camps and in Singapore.
Who do you think helped get all of those swimmers qualified for world champs and able to attend those camps in the first place. Plus Bob’s goal is to have his swimmers be self sufficient at big meets and gives them the tools to do so.