Daniel Arnamnart - Director of Swimming
Daniel is a former member of the Australian swim team and has represented Australia in Backstroke at the 2012 London Olympics, 2010 India Commonwealth Games, World Championships and Pan Pacific Championships. Daniel has had career best world ranking of 9th in the world, finished 16th at the Olympics and 6th at the commonwealth games. Throughout his career he has been Australian National Champion and is still respectively ranked 4th fastest Australian ever long course and 5th fastest Australian ever short course. Daniel also had a very successful age group swimming career. He has a plethora of state and national age group titles in all disciplines and has previously held national and state age records in the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke from the age of 14 – 18 years. Daniel has held his teaching qualifications for over 14 years and coaching qualifications for 8 years. When retiring from competitive swimming in 2014 Daniel began coaching fulltime and helped successfully coach the Knox Pymble U/12 swim team to state champions in 2016.
In late 2016 Daniel was appointed a role as the National Aquatics Project Manager for Greenwich Leisure Limited which is the largest leisure social enterprise in the UK. In the National role Daniel was managing a learn to swim business with over 140,000 pupils across 137 centres in the UK. Through Daniel’s knowledge of pool programming, effective business plans and marketing implementations he was able to ensure year on year growth and ensure a dynamic program was kept throughout the facilities.Daniel now oversees the program management and operations of 6 City of Sydney facilities. His primary focus is providing strategic direction from Learn to Swim to Squads which creates a nurturing and strong relationship into competitive swimming. Daniel has proved to have successful outcomes by ensuring there is a genuine pathway through the program and providing a lifelong connection to the sport of swimming. Daniel is not only a swimming fan but loves all sports. He likes to spend his free time watching the Roosters win the NRL, Daniel Riccardo in the F1 and the Australian Cricket team. He is also a food fanatic – loves to cook and enjoy a nice meal out.
Andrea – Head Coach
Andrea's career in the aquatics industry began after meeting Alberto Ghibbellini (a former bronze medalist waterpolo player at the Sydney Olympics), who opened a brand new swim club called Aquarium in his hometown of Nove Ligure, Italy and gave Andrea a job. He started learn to swim in 2000 and began coaching in 2002 at the same club, eventually progressing to Head Coach in 2005, where he remained for the next 11 years! He eventually came to Australia and started working at Cook and Phillip in 2013. Prior to coaching, Andrea was working on a career in the fashion industry and eventually decided to get back into swimming to give back to the community. Andrea has had multiple levels of success as a coach, including State and National medalists, athletes qualifying for Olympic Trials, and swimmers achieving first place in events as a part of the NSW Team. Andrea believes that his greatest achievement is seeing his athletes achieve good performances after they have sacrificed and put in the hard work to achieve their goals. Andrea enjoys sharing the struggle with his swimmers and strives to encourage strong values and work ethic within all the squads that he coaches. Back when Andrea swam, he participated at a national level in multiple events. He experienced first-hand the effects that growth has on an athlete (both physically and mentally), by witnessing himself change from being a 100m Freestyle and 100m Breaststroke swimmer, to being a 100m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly swimmer. Andrea encourages his swimmers to “become comfortable in being uncomfortable” – something that promotes the idea that if you don’t go out of your comfort zone, you will never improve. If you took the amount of time you see Andrea at the pool and then doubled it, then this will be close to the amount of time Andrea spends at yoga each week. He often participates in Vinyasa-style yoga, often 7 days a week! Andrea uses this time to get into a silent space and relax after yelling on pool deck for his sessions.
Bec - Platinum Squad Coach
Bec was the National Squad coach at University of NSW and has a long history in the swimming arena. Bec has a deep understanding of all aspects of competitive swimming from her role as a National Squad Coach and from her personal swimming career. Bec has great skills in developing swimmers in all ages and abilities and will be a great addition to the team with her ability to coach fitness, all the way through to elite swimmers. She has been a coach on Swimming NSW teams, Australian Talent ID camps and has received awards for her contributions to Swimming NSW. In the past 5 years, Bec has coached 9 national medallists, 29 top 10 national swimmers and 51 state medallists. In addition to Bec’s swimming and coaching career, Bec has completed a Bachelor of Health Science and a Masters in Health and Physical Education. Bec is currently the NSW School Swimming Coach, Swimming Manager NSW All Schools, Convener Secondary Swimming for Combined High Schools and has played a pivotal role in developing school swimming sport pathways.
Gemma – Assistant Coach
Gemma started out as a learn to swim instructor back in 2010, quickly learning that she had an interest in the technical side to coaching swimming – an interest that she developed studying Sport and Exercise Science at university. After completing her Bachelor’s degree, Gemma went to the USA for 5 months to travel and work as a lifeguard and swim coach at a summer camp in upstate New York. In 2015, Gemma worked as a junior squad coach at Knox Grammar School, where she coached swimmers in the 12&Under state-level squad, who contributed to Knox Pymble becoming point score champions at Junior State. In 2017, Gemma moved to Castle Hill RSL Dolphins, where she spent 1 year as a Junior Squad Coach and 1 year as the National Target Squad Coach. Gemma contributed to rebuilding the club and redeveloping the positive, team and family-oriented culture that the club is still proud of today. When Gemma first assumed her role as National Target Squad Coach in 2018, the squad of 18 swimmers (12-17 years) had 9 Metropolitan and 6 State qualifiers. By the middle of 2019, the squad had 18 Metropolitan, 14 State, 6 National and 1 National Open Water qualifier, while also producing multiple Metropolitan and State medalists. Gemma has completed her Advanced Coaching Course and was also a recipient of the ASCTA Coaching Scholarship in 2019, where she was able to learn from some of the world’s best coaches at the ASCTA Conference in Brisbane. Gemma’s favourite stroke to coach is Breaststroke and her favourite skill is the Backstroke to Breaststroke crossover turn. You will often hear Gemma’s signature quote on deck, “If you are running out of air, just swim faster!”. Outside of swimming, Gemma likes to run, play soccer, read Harry Potter, watch the GWS Giants in the AFL and the Utah Jazz in the NBA, and also likes taking the SMH Good Weekend quiz with her family every Saturday.
Tom - Assistant Coach
Tom works across multiple squads across the contract - based at Gunyama Park. Tom competed for team Great Britain for over 5 years and started his coaching career in 2013 at one of the top swim programs in the UK, Sheffield. Tom has since worked in Australia as a junior coach and is near completion of his Advanced Coaching licence. Tom is worked as a Swimming Coach at Mont Sant Mercy College and has worked with a wide range of swimmers aged from 8-19 years, including para-athletes and was part of the coaching team that helped Australia win a gold medal at the 2019 Para Swimming Championships. Tom is a great addition to the team and will be working with all squads from Junior Dolphins to Gold.
Sara – Squad Coach
Sara has always had a dream of becoming a swim coach ever since she was a young girl. Starting out as a learn to swim instructor (a position she has maintained for over 15 years), she began her coaching career in 2017 at Sydney Olympic Park, coaching the non-competitive squads. She quickly progressed to coaching the junior squads that were Area, Metropolitan and State-level swimmers. During this time, Sara coached swimmers to achieve multiple top-10 placings at the Junior State Championships and is excited to produce the same achievements with her squads at City of Sydney. Sara believes that one of the most important things for her as a coach is seeing her swimmers happy, motivated and unified in all her sessions, which is something she is often seen to be promoting on pool deck during all her sessions. You will often see Sara getting her swimmers to bond with each other using team activities to learn various techniques and skills. Earlier in Sara’s swimming career, she was a monofin swimmer (fin swimming), specialising in 50m, 100m, 200m and the 50m underwater events. She had the honour of representing Italy during the World Cup and European Cups between 2004 and 2007, achieving multiple medals for her country. This is the reason that Sara’s favourite skill to teach is underwater kick and loves to introduce the amazing feeling of being underwater to all of her swimmers. Sara’s favourite stroke to coach is Butterfly, believing that it is the perfect combination of strength and elegance at the same time. You will be able to hear Sara’s “read the clooock!” above most during her squad sessions – a skill that she encourages all swimmers to learn as early as possible. Sara is constantly updating her knowledge of swimming and hopes that her future will always involve water, chlorine, and a stopwatch! When not at the pool, Sara loves to relax on the beach and enjoys doing a few laps in the ocean.
Goshi – Squad Coach
Goshi began his career in the aquatics industry as a learn to swim teacher, a role that he continued to undertake for 10 years at a Japanese-run swimming club. It was at this club that he transitioned to coaching in 2017, while also starting his job as a junior squad coach at City of Sydney. Goshi’s main motivation to transition from learn to swim into coaching was due to his interest in becoming involved in the research behind competitive swimming – something that he is heavily involved in during his studies at university. Goshi has completed his Honours year in Bachelor of Health Science, with the hope of pursuing further study as a Sports Scientist, specialising in competitive swimming. Goshi has achieved a lot of success with his junior swimmers, with one of the most significant achievements being able to motivate his swimmers to enjoy and get the most out of their sessions. He is especially proud of having his first junior swimmer achieve a state-qualifying time and hopes to have many more swimmers in the future achieve this fantastic result. Goshi has always been involved in swimming himself and particularly likes swimming Freestyle – a stroke that is also his favourite to coach due to its fundamental movements that it contributes towards all strokes, as well as it being the fastest stroke to swim. Goshi is highly motivated and seeks to go out to all carnivals to support both the swimmers and the coaches. He enjoys walking around pool deck at swim meets, talking to other coaches and making the use of their own knowledge and experiences. If you don’t see Goshi on pool deck (which is rare), you will often find him hanging out at the beach, or enjoying about 50 rolls of sushi (yes, in one sitting!).