Andrei Vorontsov, the 56-year-old coach and sports scientist who has been at Bath in Britain for the past eight years, will leave England behind on Boxing Day to return to mother Russia as head coach to one of Europe's swimming powerhouses. January 1, 2009 marks a new beginning for an old hand (for non-native English speakers, old hand means 'a skilled or experienced person').
Born in Nerchinsk, in the Soviet Union, Vorontsov studied at the State Central Institute of Physical Culture/ Russian State Academy of Physical Education before rising through the ranks of the Soviet sports machine.
He specialised in Theory and Methodics of Physical Education and Sport Training and earned a “Diploma with Merit” before graduating with a doctorate in Sports Science from the Russian State Academy of Physical Education in 1977. In 1987 he was elected as associate professor of the Russian State Academy of Physical Education and helped to teach more than 120 professional swimming coaches and teachers over a 15-year period.
His expertise ranges from hydrodynamics and biomechanics and strength, endurance and altitude training to periodisation and planning of training schedules. During his time as project Manager of the Complex Research Group of the Moscow Olympic Center of Aquatic Sports, in 1983 to 1992, he wrote more than 100 articles, books, scientific reports and lecture notes on swimming and his work has been used in the USA, Australia, Germany, Spain, Finland, France and Britain.
After a period in Singapore in the mid-1990s, Vorontsov arrived in Britain in 1999 to serve as coach and sports scientist for the Amateur Swimming Federation of Great Britain. Throughout that time, he has worked at the University of Bath, both on the deck and in the lecture hall.
His experience over many years and that gained in Britain of late will doubtless be of value to a nation brimming with talent but short on the system required to convert potential to places on the podium on the biggest of occasions.
