Bernard Savage (left) pictured with former Australian swimmer Michael Klim. Source: News Limited
ONE of Swimming Australia's most influential figures from the London Olympics is on the verge of being welcomed back into the sport, with Bernard Savage the frontrunner to become the team's new high performance boss.
The Courier-Mail can reveal that Savage is the leading contender for the $400,000 a year role set to be vacated by Michael Scott, with final interviews this week.
If Savage is successful, it will be greeted by a mixed response on the pool deck, with some viewing his potential return as a retrograde step by a sport that had made giant leaps forward in and out of the pool since London.
There is no doubting Savage's impressive resume as one of the finest experts in his field after more than two decades in sport.
But he is tainted by the past failure of Australia's London Olympic campaign.
Savage was former head coach Leigh Nugent's right-hand man in London that produced Australia's worst Olympic performance in two decades and resulted in scathing independent reviews that found the team culture to be "toxic".
Athletes complained about too much focus being put on certain individuals at the expense of others, particularly after Nugent and Savage dedicated time and resources towards the failed comeback of Ian Thorpe.
Interestingly, current swim team head coach Jacco Verhaeren was not part of the interview panel, although he has been kept up to date on developments and expects an appointment to be made in the coming weeks.
"I think (it will be) a matter of weeks rather than months but it takes time to hire high quality people," he said last week.
Former Olympic medallist Daniel Kowalski, current head of the Swimmers' Association, is among the final candidates who survived the first round of interviews with CEO Mark Anderson, board member Nicole Livingstone, AIS director Matt Favier and team coach Rohan Taylor. Savage, high performance science manager of the swim team from 2007-12, is favoured to claim the top job though after he was privately urged to apply for the position three months ago despite being contracted to Triathlon Australia.
He was poached by Triathlon Australia to be their national performance director almost immediately after the London Olympics.
While he is contracted through to the 2016 Rio Olympics, it is believed he has told his current employers of his application for swimming's top job.
The world titles swimming trials, which start in Sydney on Friday, will again be broadcast on a two-hour delay on One HD with the only live coverage available through their mobile app programs.
This is despite the return of Olympic great Grant Hackett and the threat of potential world records for the likes of James Magnussen, Cate Campbell and Emily Seebohm.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Savage tipped for swim return
Dengan url
http://ragaseni.blogspot.com/2015/03/savage-tipped-for-swim-return.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Savage tipped for swim return
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar