With British Swimming looking for a new National Team Head Coach, David McNulty, who will lead the Brits at the World Short Course Championships in Turkey told the BBC that he is not interested in taking on the job going forward.
McNulty, who coached Michael Jamieson to Olympic Silver in the 200 breaststroke, told the BBC that he is happiest on deck actively coaching.
Over the past week Rebecca Adlington has made headlines expressing her unhappiness with how British Swimming has conducted their business after Olympic Team Head Coach Dennis Pursley resigned soon after the Games. Adlington made it clear that she was confused and disheartened that British Swimming was taking so long to appoint a new Head Coach.
After the public criticism British Swimming’s Chief Executive David Sparkes met with the disgruntled Adlington. The meeting was reported as being a ‘healthy debate.’
It appears that both Adlington and McNulty are on the same page with what type of passport the new boss should carry.
Adlington told the BBC last week that she felt, “[We need] people who live in this country, know how British people work, know the system, know quite a lot of us athletes, know the coaches and can communicate with them.”
With McNulty telling the BBC that, “For me Bill Furniss (Adlington’s coach) and Chris Nesbit would both be ideal [as the new boss].”
With so much attention being paid to the future leadership of British Swimming two swimmers are focused on what they can do to move forward, especially with the World Short Course Championships only a few days away.
Michael Jamieson told The Sun, “It’s down to the athletes and their coaches to look at themselves to work out why they did not get the result they expected. A lot of swimmers got into finals but were just not quite ready to get on to the podium.”
Adding that that he knows that all British eyes will be looking to him for results in Turkey, “I know the pressure will be on me but that is something I will have to learn to deal with.”
While Hannah Miley, who had some impressive results at the European Championships just a few weeks ago told The Guardian, “I’m glad to be away from that. It sounds kind of messy.”
“That is the Olympic Games, you get the joyous, happy side and the broken-down, disheartened side. It’s very difficult for an athlete to stay in the middle ground, and I’ve really put my foot down and said: ‘No, I’m staying in this middle ground.’
“You want to go back into training with renewed passion.”
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Earlier this week British Swimming did announce interim appointments in the organizations most pivotal roles with Mark Perry being promoted to Technical Lead, Graham Bassi taking over Perry’s role with the developmental team and Ian Mason, the Director of World Class Operations for British Swimming, who won’t formally be changing roles, but will be the new direct report for those who previously were under former High Performance Director Michael Scott.
Good for McNulty. Most coaches rather be on pool deck!