Shane Tusup Returns to the Elite Pool Deck as the Coach of European Champion Vivien Jackl

One of swimming’s most controversial coaches Shane Tusup is returning to the decks of elite swimming with European Champion Vivien Jackl.

The pair have signed with the Hungarian multi-sport club Honved in Hungary: Jackl’s home country and the American-born Tusup’s adopted country.

Jackl, 16, was the 2024 European Champion in the 1500 freestyle and also won silver in the 400 IM in Belgrade. Those medals come in addition to three European Junior Championship medals in 2023 and 2024, among five total at that level.

Jackl was born in Budapest, where the club Honved is located, and the club held a ceremonial signing for them on Tuesday. The club has been home to six Olympic medal winning swimmers including Olympic champions Kristof Milak (2024 – 100 fly & 2020 – 200 fly) and Jozsef Szabo (1988 – 200 breaststroke).

Budapest Honved also has teams in football (soccer), handball, water polo, athletics, fencing, canoeing, boxing, gymnastics, judo, shooting, and modern pentathlon. The program’s men’s football team currently competes in the second tier of the Hungarian football pyramid, though they were the top tier champions as recently as the 2016-2017 season, and the club was recently sold to one of Hungary’s richest men Tamas Lisztinger.

The club trains out of its own Honvéd Sportuszoda, which has a 50 meter training pool.

Tusup, 36, built his career around the training of Hungary’s most famous swimmer Katinka Hosszu. Together the pair won 4 Olympic medals, including 3 gold, at the Rio 2016 Games, set dozens of World Records, and rewrote the expectation of the durability of swimmers to enter multiple events across a meet.

The two were married from 2013 until 2018, when the pair split up personally and professionally.

Tusup became famous for his on-deck behavior. In 2018, he was  ordered to apologize to a former Iron Aquatics coach and pay his legal fees after Hosszu testified against him in court.

Darren Ward was a former coach with Iron Aquatics, the club started by Hosszu and Tusup and branded in line with her well-marketed “Iron Lady” moniker. Hungarian media report that there was an altercation between Tusup and Ward at a Hungarian National Championships in which Tusup allegedly screamed at Ward “If you do that again, I’ll kill you.”

In late 2017, he was criticized  for an expletive-laden tirade directed at an official at an age group meet – Tusup was upset about what he considered an unfair start to a relay of 10- and 11-year-old girls, and responded by shouting “F[***] you, Mr. Pass” at the meet organizer, local media reported. Tusup defended his actions by comparing himself to NBA coach Gregg Popovich, who was ejected from a professional basketball game for similar reasons.

In 2020, he did an episode of the SwimSwam Podcast where he apologized for past coaching mistakes and apologized for a lot of the behavior that he said he wasn’t proud of.

Since his split with Hosszu, he became the coach of Italian teenager star Ilaria Cusinato, documenting the partnership in a YouTube series. He also spent time pursuing a career as a professional long drive golfer. In late 2024, he competed in the Hungarian celebrity boxing show Sztarbox, where he was eventually eliminated by retired professional soccer player Sandor Torghelle.

Honved club president Istvan Gergely is a two-time Olympic gold medalist as a member of Hungary’s 2004 and 2008 men’s water polo teams.

“A few weeks ago I would not have thought that I would be sitting here between you two, but it is very good that it is,” he said of the signings. “Thank you for the trust you have placed in the Budapest Honvéd, and we will do our best to provide the support you need to achieve your goals.”

“I am really looking forward to this new chapter in my sports career, it is a great honor to continue swimming in such a successful club,” Jackl said. “The primary goal is to perform as well as possible in the youth age group, but it is no secret that I would also like to represent my country and the Honvéd at the adult world competitions.”

“I am motivated for the upcoming period, as a coach cannot ask for more than such a talented competitor and such a supportive, successful club. I feel that everything is here to create something epoch-making, and the first step to this is Vivi’s mentality and attitude towards the sport, and this is very convincing,” shared Shane Tusup.

Jackl swam the 1500 free and 400 IM at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, finishing 15th and 14th, respectively. Jackl is ranked #57 in SwimSwam’s Top 100 Women’s Swimmers for 2025.