Swimming: Boyle's mentor heads for Shanghai

Lauren Boyle. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Swimming coach Mark Regan is now on the plane to Shanghai for the world swimming championships, with star performer Lauren Boyle.

Last week's Herald on Sunday revealed Boyle was upset Regan was denied permission to attend the world championships in July.

Fifteen swimmers, including Boyle, were named last week for Shanghai, as were coaches Scott Talbot, Leanne Speechley and Jeremy Duncan, plus team leader Mark O'Connor.

SNZ's decision not to take Regan to mentor Boyle was thought to be because he is no longer national head coach (he resigned after the Delhi Commonwealth Games) and his post as senior high performance coach was not ranked high enough.

Regan has had success in coaching Boyle and swimmer of the year, Glenn Snyders. Boyle had an outstanding week at the national championships in Auckland, qualifying in the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle as well as the 4 x 200m freestyle relay. She broke two national records, lowering her own 400m mark by two seconds and shaving the 800m mark by 2.27s to 8m 33.30s - eclipsing the oldest mark in the New Zealand record books, that of Philippa Langrell at the 1992 Olympics.

She was distressed at Regan's absence as she had no other coach having cast her lot with the US collegiate swimming programme. Boyle's improvement has been marked and Regan's absence called into question a system which seems to penalise an athlete who had bettered herself by training overseas.

After last week's story, an email from Swimming NZ CEO was sent to interested parties, saying Regan would now be going to Shanghai.

The email said: "The SNZ Board and management have reviewed the composition of our team to go to Shanghai and we are excited to advise that Mark Regan has been appointed to the team in a capacity of Coaching Advisor to support the three squad coaches ..."

It said Regan had extensive international experience and would provide valuable mentoring and guidance.