Don Talbot, a legendary head coach of Australian swimming who oversaw golden eras of Olympic success, has died at age 87.
Talbot passed away on Tuesday and tributes poured in for his extraordinary career.
Talbot served two terms as Australian swimming's head coach, starting in 1964 and then in 1989. He was a Sydney teacher who began as a swim coach in 1956 and his reputation was first built as the mentor of world-beaters like John and Isla Konrads.
His reign began with the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, where he led Kevin Berry, Ian O'Brien, Bob Windle, Beverley Whitfield and Gail Neall to gold medals.
His second term included the Sydney 2000 campaign, which reaped five Olympic gold medals on home soil and 18 medals in total. He was the boss of champions such as Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Susie O'Neill in Sydney, and oversaw the likes of Kieren Perkins in glorious campaigns at Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996.
He ended his tenure in 2001, after Australia topped the gold medal count at the world championships in Fukuoka, Japan.
Talbot was also a head coach of the Canadian and USA swimming programs between his stints leading Swimming Australia. He began with Canada in 1972 and coached the Americans for two years leading up to the 1980 Moscow Olympics; only for the USA to boycott due to the Cold War with Russia.
Talbot became the inaugural director of the Australian Institute of Sport in 1980. He again coached Canada for the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, which were their most successful.
Talbot was remembered as a giant of the sport after news broke of his passing.
https://twitter.com/SwimmingCanada/status/1323718920973520899?s=20Talbot's Sydney 2000 campaign was highlighted by a boilover victory for Australian in the men's 4x100m relay, where Thorpe, Michael Klim, Ashley Callus and Chris Fydler beat the hotly-fancied USA team.
Fydler told Wide World of Sports this year that the remarkable triumph was a result of Talbot's painstaking work to strengthen the depth of Australian swimming.
"We started to build a team and a bit of depth," Fydler said.
"Don Talbot had put a lot of effort into the swim program over that decade."
Thorpe once said of Talbot, a renowned tough task-master of the old school: "People see him as being harsh, as being hard. But when you get on the team, you realise that he's fair and he's just."
Sydney 2000 was Australia's best Olympic performance in the pool since the 1972 Munich Games.
Talbot was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the Sport Australian Hall of Fame; both honours were granted before his Sydney 2000 triumph.
The 2001 world titles were a glorious, and somewhat controversial, conclusion as the Aussies staked a claim as the world's No.1 swimming nation.
Australia won 13 gold medals to the USA's nine, though the mighty Americans won seven more total medals. Talbot annoyed the toppled USA by claiming victory.
"I operate on the gold standard. They can take the medal totals or the points. I'll take a win on golds any day," he said, while Hackett branded the Americans "sore losers" for disputing Australia's win.
Talbot later wrote in his autobiography: "The achievements in Fukuoka 2001, which stand as the centrepiece of my story, represent some sort of fairytale ending. And I'll never forget those days in Japan."
https://twitter.com/deek207/status/1323776070693253120?s=20https://twitter.com/CoachLisaA/status/1323778609874571264?s=20from WWOS https://ift.tt/34VVLOJ
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