Sarah Sjostrom Splits With Coach Carl Jenner

Swedish world record-holder and Olympic gold medalist Sarah Sjöström has parted ways with her longtime coach Carl Jenner. Sjöström announced the move on her Instagram, saying that a shift in training and coaching had been in her plans since before the Rio Olympics.

Still, the move comes after a stretch of 4 years during which Sjöström was all but unbeatable in the 100 fly. She just finished racking up 3 medals at the Rio Olympics – gold in the 100 fly, silver in the 200 free and bronze in the 100 free – and won 5 golds at the World Championships in Kazan one year prior. Sjöström is the world record-holder and owns almost all of the top 10 100 fly swims in history and hasn’t lost that event on the world level since the 2012 Olympics.

Sjöström says she will continue to train out of the NEC national training center in Stockholm, but will now swim for Johan Wallberg, a Swedish Olympian in 1996 and 2000. More recently, Wallberg has been both coach and husband to 6-time Swedish Olympian Therese Alshammar.

A rough translation of Sjöström’s Instagram announcement, originally posted in Swedish:

Prior to 2017, I’m making changes in my workout routines. Me and my coach Carl Jenner have had many years of great cooperation that has given me many and great successes. The Olympics in Rio were obviously the culmination of our cooperation. I have always looked at the Olympics in Rio as a diploma, but also as a starting point for something new before my next four years until the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. Already in Rio, I had conversations with Carl and announced that I want do things differently in the future. I will continue to be connected to the NEC (FINA Swimming Federation elite center) and will swim under Johan Wallberg as head coach. Johan has recently been put in charge of Swimming Federation NEC operations up until 2020. Johan has extensive training and experience from international training environments. This will be a new start for the me and the kick I want. This means that Stockholm will continue to be my permanent base. I want to thank Carl for all these years and also like to thank my second coach Andrei Vorontsov for 4 fun and challenging years at the NEC!

Inför 2017 kommer jag att göra förändringar i mina träningsrutiner. Jag och min tränare Carl Jenner har haft ett mångårigt fantastiskt samarbete som givit mig många och stora framgångar. OS i Rio var givetvis kulmen på vårt samarbete. Jag har hela tiden sett just OS i Rio som en examen men även som ett avstamp på något nytt inför mina nästa fyra år fram till OS i Tokyo 2020. Redan i Rio när jag simmat klart så hade jag samtal med Carl och meddelade att jag vill göra saker annorlunda framgent. Jag kommer fortsättningsvis vara ansluten till NEC (Simförbundets elitcenter) och då under Johan Wallberg som ansvarig tränare. Johan har nyligen blivit huvudansvarig för simförbundets NEC verksamhet fram t.o.m 2020. Johan har en gedigen utbildning och även erfarenhet från internationella träningsmiljöer. Detta blir en nytändning för mig och den kick jag vill ha. Detta betyder att Stockholm även fortsättningsvis blir min fasta bas. Jag vill tacka Carl för alla dessa år och även passa på att tacka min andra tränare Andrei Vorontsov för 4 roliga och utmanande år på NEC!

A photo posted by Sarah Sjöström (@sarahsjostrom) on Nov 2, 2016 at 4:04am PDT