COACH DIVES IN TO NEW CHALLENGE

THERE aren’t many coaches who can lay claim to producing 11 Olympic champions within a decade, but Marina Kholod can.

And it’s all thanks to a sport she began, begrudgingly, at age six in Ukraine – synchronised swimming or, as it’s officially called now, artistic swimming.

“My parents just decided for me that I should do the sport,” Ms Kholod told the Bulletin.

“I pretty much didn’t have a choice. I can’t say I loved it at the start or had fun ... but I’m very grateful that they made me do that.”

Thirty-two years on, after winning championships and coaching Australian Olympic artistic swimmers, Ms Kholod can’t keep away.

She opened up the Gold Coast Mermaids Synchronised Swimming Club in 2009.

Eleven of her pupils have gone on to become Olympic champions, competing in London and Rio de Janeiro. Many more have taken out national, state, regional and local titles, while the club itself was recently awarded the Australian Club of the Year for the second time running.

But Ms Kholod isn’t stopping there, revealing her latest challenge is getting more boys involved, hopefully in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“It’s so hard to get boys to break the stereotype (of female-only swimmers),” she said.

“This is the challenge. I love when something becomes almost unachievable and you need to find the way to make it work.”

Club members Kirsten Kinash, 20, and Kiera Gazzard, 17, support Ms Kholod’s latest quest.

“It’s fantastic that our sport is open to everyone, including guys, now,” Ms Kinash said.

“It would be great to have more people join.”