French Olympian Beryl Gastaldello Training With Coley Stickels

French national record holder Beryl Gastaldello is training with former Alabama head coach Coley Stickels, she announced on Instagram Tuesday.

Gastaldello had been training with the pro group at Texas A&M, where she swam as an undergrad, but said last week that she was moving on.

As for her new partnership with Stickels, it’s not yet clear where exactly Gastaldello will be training. Stickels was the head coach of the University of Alabama’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving program for 18 months before resigning mid-season in 2020. He then focused on training individual athletes for the Tokyo Olympics and has been on staff with the Tokyo Frog Kings as head assistant coach under Dave Salo during the current ISL season.

The 26-year-old Gastaldello is a versatile sprinter, specializing in free, backstroke and butterfly. As far as major international hardware goes, she has a bronze medal from the 4×100 free relay at the 2019 World Championships, two long course European Championships gold medals from the women’s and mixed 4×100 free relays in 2018, and seven short course European Championships medals. She owns three individual silver medals from short course Euros in the 100 free, 50 fly and 50 back, all from the 2018 competition.

Gastaldello made her Olympic debut in 2016, competing in the 100 free, 100 fly, 4×100 free and medley relays, finishing as high as seventh in the free relay. She raced in the 100 back and 4×100 free relay in Tokyo.

The 2020 International Swimming League season proved to be a huge opportunity for Gastaldello, who finished third overall individually while representing the LA Current. She amassed 20 individual victories over six matches and six different events — the 50 free, 100 free, 50 back, 50 fly, 100 fly and 100 IM. Gastaldello is the No. 9-ranked swimmer overall in the league so far this season.

Gastaldello’s French national records are in the short course 100 free, 50 back and 100 IM as well at the women’s and mixed 4×50 free relays.  At A&M, she was the SEC Female Freshman of the Year in 2015 and went on to earn multiple top-five finishes individual at NCAAs.

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Mike
3 years ago

Coley gets results. He’s definitely not for the faint of heart but she’s a full grown adult who looks like she can give as well as she gets. I think they will do well.

swimm
Reply to  Mike
3 years ago

Coley gets great results for 1-2 years and then his swimmers plateau.

Chas E
Reply to  swimm
3 years ago

BS. His swimmers always do well and people on this site are incredibly jealous of his results and training style bc they don’t understand it.

swimapologist
Reply to  Chas E
3 years ago

Guess the University of Alabama didn’t understand it either. Or were they jealous of it? Thought that the swim program/Coley would take attention away from coach Saban? I bet that whole thing was orchestrated by Nick. Couldn’t handle sharing the spotlight. SMH typical.

Time For Barta To Go
3 years ago

Who. Cares.

I win, you lose
3 years ago

The Coley emoji🤗🤗🤗

ButWhy
3 years ago

So the next headline we read about her will be her retiring from swimming

Gus
Reply to  ButWhy
3 years ago

Maybe she will be the next Head Coach at a Power 5 school… just saying.

Former swimmer
3 years ago

I think he’s back in Nebraska. Not joking either.

NC Fan
Reply to  Former swimmer
3 years ago

Where in the world is Coley Stickels…or more importantly, where will he be come February? He actually may be able to pass for Waldo.

samos
Reply to  NC Fan
3 years ago

he been busy, evidently, at Olympics then Napoli

Entgegen
3 years ago

Hold on let me warm up my popcorn machine in preparation for this comment section!

Olympian
Reply to  Entgegen
3 years ago

it’s been 15 minutes… where’s everybody??

Scotty P
Reply to  Olympian
3 years ago

I mean we all want to see this because Shane Tusup headlines are virtually over due to his selfie collection on Instagram.

Last edited 3 years ago by Scotty P
Olympian
Reply to  Scotty P
3 years ago

Oh man, I wonder where’s Shane has been… Not that I loved seeing athletes going through that type of stuff I won’t mention so my comment doesn’t get blocked nor being sued, but I do miss me a little drama…

About Torrey Hart

Torrey Hart

Torrey is from Oakland, CA, and majored in media studies and American studies at Claremont McKenna College, where she swam distance freestyle for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team. Outside of SwimSwam, she has bylines at Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, and The Student Life newspaper.

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