SWIM Ireland has appointed a new head coach for its high performance centre at the UL Arena, with Lars Humer starting in the role this week.New Zealand native Humer has worked as a high performance swimming coach in Britain for the past 13 years, coaching Olympic and Paralympic swimmers during his time in the role.
“I’m looking forward to the challenge of working with a new group of swimmers. Swim Ireland has a great structure in place already and I’m excited by the prospect of working within that structure,” said the newly installed coach, who officially began his term last Monday.
Humer replaces Ronald Claes as head coach at UL after the Belgian was controversially removed from the position in September. University Arena officials had been seeking a coach of similar global renown to Claes and Dave Mahedy, director of Sport at UL, expressed his satisfaction at the appointment of Humer.
Mr Mahedy said: “We are delighted to welcome Lars to Limerick and we look forward to working together with Lars and Swim Ireland in the future”.
Swim Ireland chief executive Sarah Keane also gave her firm backing to the new high performance coach.
“We are thrilled to welcome Lars to the Swim Ireland team. He is the right person to succeed Ronald Claes as we move forward into a new Olympic Cycle with a new high performance strategy. We believe Lars has the passion and experience to help Irish swimmers develop and deliver results at European and world level,” she said.
