Aussi News: Tasker Named CEO for Australian Swimming, Top Coach Leaves for Canada

By Stephen Thomas

SYDNEY, Nov. 20. GLENN Tasker, the man charged with the smooth operation of last year's Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic swimming competitions, was today named the new Chief Executive Officer of Australian Swimming Inc.

The 49-year-old Tasker succeeds retiring executive director Mrs Vena Murray, who will stand down at year-end after more than a decade at the helm of Australia's most successful Olympic sport.

Tasker, the former NSW Swimming executive director, will officially take over the reins of his new position on January 2, when he leaves his current role as general manager of the NSW Amateur Soccer Association.

Mr Tasker, who controlled NSW Swimming between 1990 and 1998, and a man with 14 years experience in sports administration, said today he could not wait to start his role.

Fowlie Returns to Native Canada
In other Australian news, leading Canadian born Australia national team coach, Jim Fowlie, will leave the Australian Institute of Sport at the end of this year to take up a position with Canadian Swimming.

In what is seen by many here as a surprise move, the 45-year-old Australian citizen and his wife Lynn will head to Victoria, Canada in March to set up an elite swimming program that will have many similarities to the successful Australian Institute of Sport scholarship structure.

Fowlie joined the AIS from Canada as a senior coach in 1992 around the time that Russian Gennadi Touretski and Englishman Barry Prime also made the move to Australia. Prior to that he had numerous Canadian national team appointments between 1981 and 1991, including assistant coach at the 1990 Commonwealth Games. He was head coach of the Canadian teams, which competed at the USSR nationals in 1987 and in the Canada versus USSR meet in Moscow in 1988.

Since his arrival at the AIS, Fowlie has been a coach in Australian teams to the World Championships in 1998 and 2001, the Atlanta Olympics, as well as World Short Course Swimming Championships in 1993, 1995 and 1997. He was also head coach of Australian World Cup teams in 1995 and 1997, and since 1997, the national event coach for butterfly.

Fowlie's move comes after a tough year for him. First, Gennadi Touretski, his fellow senior coach at the AIS, was suspended for five months on an alleged steroid possession charge (which has since been dismissed) leaving Fowlie with additional coaching responsibilities including those of Michael Klim. In addition, he has had a very busy domestic and international program as a national coach which including the World Championships and Goodwill Games all on top of the loss of his father during the year.

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