Highly decorated coach and Mighty Blues, Greg Salter, has joined the Swimming NSW Performance Team as Regional Coaching Project Manager. A new role for Swimming NSW, Salter’s goal in this position is to support and develop the quality of swim coaches and coaching in the NSW regions.
Swimming NSW aims to deliver a World Class Athlete Development Pathway, with the goal of making NSW the #1 state in Australia for performance and participation by 2032. We can deliver this level of success by building more first choice high performance programs for NSW swimmers within NSW. That starts with solid clubs with robust coaching programs.
Refocusing dedicated coaching resources to the NSW regions has been a highly effective strategy to date, implemented in 2017 through the deployment of Regional Coaching Director Chris Myers.
As Regional Coaching Director, Chris spends most of his time on the road, supporting regional coaches, swimmers and clubs through regular face-to-face visits. This program has been embraced wholly by regional clubs, resulting in incredible growth in demand.
Hailing from Cessnock and based in Kingscliff, NSW native Greg Salter has returned after stints interstate and overseas to bring his vast experience and knowledge to the NSW regions as Regional Coaching Project Manager, thereby expanding access to high performance coaching resources for regional NSW clubs.
Notorious for coaching triple Olympian and Sydney 2000 4x100m freestyle relay gold medallist, Chris Fydler OAM, Salter joins the Swimming NSW team with a rich and varied background of coaching environments – from Dubbo to Sydney and abroad.
“I’m country born and bred, and I want to see rural NSW be as competitive as it can be,” said Salter. “Having been born in, schooled in, and having had a successful coaching career in the country, I saw this new position and thought ‘this is exactly what I’ve been looking for’. I want to help motivate coaches.”
In the past three years, we have seen more swimmers from regional clubs represented at state and national championships, and last year, had the most NSW medallists at national age championships in a decade.
These results support the continued development of decentralised high performance programs across the state. Salter is no stranger to this model, having headed three High Performance Centres in Sydney and one in Kingscliff between the years of 2001-2008.
Although Salter is known for his commendable history of coaching Australian swimmers at the very highest levels of the sport including World Championships, Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games teams, his passion began through the development of junior swimmers at Gunnedah swimming pool, then Macksville Olympic Pool where he first became Head Coach.
“Country kids are tough, and an active lifestyle is a natural part of life for them.” Salter believes country kids have everything it takes to be champions; they just need the right environment to grow.
“Having travelled around the state recently - Narrabri, Gunnedah, Dubbo, Bathurst – these facilities can sustain programs at the highest level with the right people driving them.”
“We’ve got great coaches out in the regions already and they need support, encouragement, and acknowledgment.”
Greg Salter has already begun making his way around NSW, calling in to facilities and contacting clubs and coaches as we head into the winter season.
If you’d like to speak to Greg about how he can support your program, please reach out: greg.salter@nsw.swimming.org.au.
