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Club Coach Profiles

Head Coach

Brenton Ford
Brenton coaches most of our club training sessions. As Head Coach, he is responsible for planning the overall training program and liaising with the committee (Training Subcommittee and Competition Subcommittee) and with other coaches. Brenton's carefully planned progressive goal and test sets are a key factor in helping swimmers to reach their full potential over any given training cycle. He is very quick with the stop watch and swimmers are often given their repeat times throughout a main set, which is very handy for benchmarking progress. Brenton has an excellent pedigree in competitive swimming, coming from the Traralgon Swimming Club, and having participated successfully at various levels of the sport, from age group to national. Brenton's father, Brian Ford, is the Head Coach of Traralgon, and has produced a series of outstanding results, including eight consecutive country title wins.

Club Coaches

Arun Karunaratne
Arun coaches our Wednesday and Saturday morning sessions. Arun brings a cheerful outlook and a very positive and motivational approach to masters coaching. He has an elite swimming background and represented Sri Lanka at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Arun's friendly disposition and tough sets make his sessions both fun and challenging!

Karen Maidment-Wood
Karen has been coaching Thursday night sessions for several years, and currently shares this coaching responsibility with Brenton. Karen is a very motivated and committed open water competitor and regularly wins her age group in the open water swimming events. Karen is an endurance swimming force to be reckoned with! Karen's sessions tend to focus on building aerobic capacity and endurance, although the occasional sprint set has been known to appear.

Sam Ashby
Sam often makes special guest appearances at Powerpoints Sessions, whenever one of the other club coaches is unavailable. He has an excellent record as a competitive swimmer at the national level. In 2008, Sam competed in two finals at the Australian National Olympic Selection Trials in Sydney - 100 breast and 200 IM, finishing 8th and 5th respectively. His 200 IM time was a very impressive 2:02:93 - a massive PB. Sam thoroughly enjoys his time on pool deck with Powerpoints as he gets to give the orders, which is a welcome change from being in the water and taking the orders. :) He also passes on some great technique and race tips from the world of elite swimming. Sam has swum his fair share of laps in the pool and he knows what it is like to go hard. He sets some challenging sets and has a great eye for technique.