Following our look at 10 of the biggest off-deck contributors of the past decade in our countdown of memories from 2000-09, we consider the coaches who have helped shape the sport of swimming. A list of 10 is, of course, bound to miss many a key player, but our entries are not designed to exclude, rather to recognise outstanding contributions to the overall direction taken by the sport of swimming globally in the past decade.

No 6: 10 of the Most Influential Folk On The Deck 2000-09

Bob Bowman (USA): no secret that the mentor and coach to Michael Phelps features in our No 1 entry on the list of our top 100 memories of the decade past. In the context of this list, Bowman's place is one of messenger to a nation inspired by the greatest Olympian of all time, what he does, how he does it and how such direction and understanding can ripple out to the benefit of all. At Melbourne 2007, in the wake of Phelps adding a further 7 gold medals to a collection of trophies second to none in world sport as a dress rehearsal for a knockout blow in Beijing, Mark Schubert said: "I communicate alot with Bob, just to kind of help me with benchmarks to inspire other coaches and swimmers and he just tells me about some of the things Michael does in training which are phenomenal. Also the way he competes in-season and out of season." And on Bowman's Facebook page this month, a ripple to those who wish to heed: “If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.” Thomas J. Watson, Sr.

Eddie Reese (USA) - even here, where words are never spared if I can help it, I refrain from trawling through the stellar career of a man for whom swimming has meant so much and a man who has meant so much to swimming. You can read much more at the Texas Longhorns website. At the helm are 26 Olympic gold medals among his charges, while Reese claimed the ASCA Coach of the Year crown three times in the past decade, in 2005, 2006 and 2009. To spend a few moments in Reese's company is to understand why his charges respond as they do. Generations of swimmers have been lucky enough to have found themselves in the scope of his guardianship. Here a few words of wisdom from the man as he gets to the core of the champion spirit: “The hardest skill to acquire in this sport is the one where you compete all out, give it all you have, and you are still getting beat no matter what you do. When you have the killer instinct to fight through that, it is very special. All great swimmers have that skill.”

Jacco Verhaeren (NED): The Dutchman is not only here because of his work with Pieter Van Den Hoogenband, though that would surely suffice. In Eindhoven, Verhaeren has built a base for Dutch swimming that recalls something of those romantic days of yore, Ma Braun and Jan Stender (known affectionately as the Hangman of Hilversum). At that centre, Verhaeren, soaking up knowledge from around the world and feeding on the tricks of the trade he picked up from working with Hoogie and Inge de Bruijn, developed the bulk of world-beating freestyle relay teams. The Dutch performance head took a strong stand on suits, working with European colleagues to draft a list of questions that demanded answers if fairness and standardisation were to be returned to the race pool. Enthusiasm, dedication and a commitment to leave no stone unturned are alive and kicking in a man with time on his side yet when it comes to the development of swimming over the next decade. To date, Verhaeren's Magnus Opus has been Hoogie. In March 2007, I got a chance to sit down and reflect with the coach and "Nearing the journey's end" is what came out of it. We also had a chance to have a fine chat with Hoogie's dad.

Doug Frost (AUS) - one of the most poignant things uttered by Bob Bowman as we witnessed the death throes of the sad suits saga was this, in the wake of that 200m free in Rome: ""It took me five years to get Michael from 1:46 to 1:42 and this guy has done it in 11 months. That's an amazing training performance. I'd like to know how to do that ... I just said to Doug Frost, the two of us were erased in three days. It took no time, what took us 12 years together. It makes me wonder why I still want to keep doing this." In turning to Frost at that particular moment in swimming history, Bowman cut to the chase of an argument. Both he and Frost had been blessed with the arrival at their pool doors of extraordinary human beings, graced not only with natural talent but the ability to understand it, appreciate it and work with it. If the talent was innate, the understanding and direction of it needed careful handling, the fragility of an exercise geared at delivering the best possible result at a very specific moment in time not to be underestimated. Doug Frost did a fabulous job with Thorpe, the attention to detail a lesson for all. That included counting the number of steps from the subterranean warm-down pool to the competition pool, back and on to changing rooms, and to podium between swims at Manchester Commonwealth Games venue well before the 2002 meet so that Thorpe could replicate that journey each day back home in training to make sure his legs would hold out over the course of a Games that would deliver a record six gold medals, a seventh denied to him by teammate Matt Welsh 54.72 to 55.38 in the 100m backstroke. Thorpe's impact on the sport of swimming cannot be overstated. The same goes for Phelps. Same in the background for Frost and Bowman too. Which is what lay behind those comments and the uncomfortable truth of the matter in 2009: the effect of the LZR on Phelps and what happened to Biedermann in 2009 on the clock is simply not comparable beyond the generality of "in 2008 it was Speedo, in 2009 it was arena". Thorpe send a gracious and generous message to Biedermann in the wake of losing the world 400m record by 0.01sec to a man who had improved 6sec and by the reckoning of his coach Frank Embacher gained something like half a second a lap from the suit he wore. Time will tell where that will go but on a number of levels there were no winners from those moments in Rome, the suit having deprived all of the right to say "I won that fair and square", or "I was beaten by a faster swimmer". When I stopped to ask Frost how he felt about it all, he stared into the distance and walked away. That said it all.

Mark Schubert (USA): from coach to head coach and performance head, Schubert has worked to great effect with a team of coaches to ensure that the USA ended the decade where it began: on top. Sydney 2000 reminded the US of the following storm called Australia. Fukuoka delivered a rare victory for the Dolphins over the US. From that moment on, the US would not be beaten at a meet again, its ability to respond and live ahead of itself part of the foundation of one of the greatest success stories in the history of world sport. The US tradition of one generation feeding off the next is a model hard to replicate throughout much of the rest of the world. It is also a distinct advantage that the US embraces with all its might. "All the athletes really feel a strong part of that tradition," said Schubert at Melbourne 2007 world titles. "What I'm always impressed with is how they help each other from the time they came together on the training camp at Geelong. We saw things like Brendan Hansen giving Tara Kirk breaststroke lessons, sharing his knowledge, and we've seen that kind of support across the board. We have tremendous chemisty from kids all over the country who just want to see each other succeed. It's very gratifying. Its one of the best team performances we've ever seen. The spirit of helping is all the difference. They really feel part of each others' success. They are so supportive if someone is disappointed ... they pick each other up. We have a tremendous advantage because of the number of people who swim and are involved in swimming. We've felt for a number of years that we've underachieved compared to the population we have in swimming. Right now we're trying to focus on utilising our talent. Developing talent like Phelps and Coughlin really helps that, and helps us to continue our tradition. I truly feel we can get better from here."

Don Talbot (AUS): one of the driving forces in Australian swimming's revival from relative decline in the 1980s, Talbot's crowning moment as head coach saw the Dolphins defeat the USA on the count that matters - gold medals - at the 2001 world championships in Fukuoka. Though 'retired' for much of the first decade of the new Millennium, Talbot's legacy is to be found at work in the culture of a swimming programme flush with talent in water and on deck and blessed with an environment hard to beat in a number of respects. The internal battles in Swimming Australia that hit the headlines at the end of a decade of progress and reinforcement  of Australia's position as world No2 in the race pool saw the departure of many of those who had played a key role in the Talbot-led success story, among them the likes of Alan Thompson, Ian Hanson, several coaches and some officials. Political games cost Australia a place on the FINA Bureau in 2009. A potentially costly mistake. It is yet to be seen how things will pan out Down Under though if those being tipped for the jobs on offer actually take charge, many of the values that served Talbot so well will be in safe hands. Talbot learned his lessons down long years of experience. The young Talbot had driven himself to the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games  “in a beaten up Holden sedan with the rear springs beginning to protrude”. In Fukuoka, when he finished his final night team talk, the Green and Gold shoal rose to their feet and applauded. And kept applauding, whistling, cheering and then came the tears as they realised the enormity of the journey. "Fantastic. It was a very special moment," said John Devitt, an Olympic silver medallist back in 1956, an Olympic champion in 1960 in the 100m freestyle. "The team spirit down through the years has been a very important part of Australia's success. And we're fostering that even more now.” 

Bill Sweetenham (AUS): It was not as if the Australian did not give fair warning of the pain inherent in any revolution. When he arrived in Britain in late 2000 in the wake of the first medalless Olympic outing for GBR since 1948, he spoke in Biblical terms when he said: "Some will be able to go with it, adapt, get through it and rise, others won't and there will be casualties. Whichever applies, everyone will feel the pain one way or another." And so they did - and there are still those who begrudge Sweetenham, who left Britain in late 2007, a mention when it comes to telling the tale of a swimming nation born again. But to leave the Australian out when considering what happened to Britain 2000-09 would be like mentioning Britain's rugby record without mentioning Sir Clive Woodward. On the eve of the 2003 world championships, Sweetenham, impatient with progress on a conveyor belt of progress that never stood still, said: "I've gone against my philosophy, which says that you should never make people chage more than 15 per cent of their programme in a year. We've broken the rules of change and changed everything - and we've got away with it. It's a balancing act. If you push too hard you'll get a rebellion but if you don't push hard enough you go back to 1912. In Sydney in 2000, Britain had just four individual finalists, one relay and only 13 per cent of swimmers managed best times because they were simply not capable of racing faster in heats - no finals, no best times, no medals. That's a tradition that has lasted since 1912, when women were first allowed to race at the Olympic Games, and the last time British swimmers won an Olympic swimming relay title, and then mostly because no-one else was swimming - we are trying to break a tradition that has lasted since 1912. So don't tell me Britain got it right." Some who lived only in their time had difficulty seeing it. Mid-term, Sweetenham noted: "We have a group of athletes now who can stand in the ready room, look their rivals in the eye and say 'I'm here to beat you, you're not here to beat me'. The train has left the station. Some will get on that train, a train now heading full speed down the right track. That train was on the wrong track. I had to change that and I badgered and harassed everybody. The swimmers accepted new philosophies really well, while some coaches found it very difficult and still do - but they're doing it. I've provided a system and a pathway to success but lasting success will only come if everyone gets on that train and works to the same end." Britain, with its six Intensive Training Centres and coaches such as Bud McAllister and Doug Frost workiong alongside home-grown talent, has never been a more cohesive force than it is now, with a home Games in London 2012 looming.

Philippe Lucas (FRA): the entry on our list of the mentor and coach to Laure Manaudou is their by right, for showing France that it was possible to take on the world and win, and symbolically, a representative (albeit it an anti-establishment presence) of the commitment to excellence that has taken hold in French swimming during the past decade. The male sprinters and their coaches have made the headlines, for obvious reasons, but progress is to be found wherever Manaudou, and Lucas, led the way. Neither he nor we, it might be said, got to see Manaudou at her best, life's distractions and a reaction to all the hard work combining to take the most successful French woman swimmer ever to pastures new before she defended her 400m crown in 2008 and left the pool with an 8th place to tag on to a career that had better to offer. Patricia Quint is now the national France coach for the women's team, her task to build on the legacy left by Manaudou among the ranks of French women swimmers. This month Quint was to be found spreading the word in the Côte d'Azur region on a tour of programmes across the nation. The likes of Denis Auguin, coach to Alain Bernard, Frédéric Barale, Fabrice Pellerin, Lionel Horter, Fred Vergnoux and others are part of a league of swimming minds that have helped France to rise from a 1.8% share of Olympic podium prizes among the top 10 nations in the 1990s to a 4.9% share in the past decade.

Alberto Castagnetti (ITA): the loss of their head coach will be felt by Italy for a while yet. Castagnetti, who died last autumn after heart surgery, was the steer, the guide, the mastermind of the national programme, the glue to a national team long fed by ranks of juniors who consistently put up a strong show in European youth waters. Domenico Fioravanti, Massimiliano Rosolino and Federica Pellegrini stem from that system. There have been controversies along the way, such as the CONI report of 2000 (that cast a shadow on Italian sporting success with information that was was never supposed to have seen the light of day but did) and the 2008 coining of the phase "technological doping" by Castagnetti. The head coach summed up neatly the unease many felt in Europe in an Olympic year that had delivered suits never seen before in the race pool and not available to their own charges months put from the Games. The response of the Italian federation was one that screamed "two wrongs make a right": with leading officials taking hold of a financial interest in a company that had never been a player in the race suit market before, the Italian federation dumped long-term sponsor and investor in swimming, arena, for the promise of a shiny suit made by Jaked. That had an obvious effect: Castagnetti's charges were now also to be found wearing what he described as "technological doping" and suit wars set in with a vengeance. As was the case with so many tales form the race pool in 2008-09, the suits saga masked better news. Italy under Castagnetti's leadership increased its shares of Olympic podium prizes from 1.9% in the 1990s to 5.4% in the first decade of the new Millennium, counting the share of spoils held among the top 10 swimming nations in each of those decades.

Norimasa Hirai (JPN): Mentor and coach to Kosuke Kitajima, Hirai's influence extends to several levels. Here, we consider him in the light of how important it is for a coach not only to spot weakness but strength - and then work with it. In 2003, a few months after Kitajima had become the first sub 2:10 200m breaststroke man, the coach told reporter Hideki Mochizuki: "His strength is that he really has strong ankles." He likened the ankle snap that he had witnessed as a natural phenomenon in his charge early in his career to a baseball pitcher's wrist.  "He had it naturally. He originally had this ability, so we put more attention to developing it. When I met him for the first time, I knew a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of his swimming techniques, but I thought the ankle snap was really a strength for him. So I encouraged him to develop the ankle snap instead of finding out his weaknesses. I know gliding is a really important factor to have higher speed, but when I met him and saw his strengths, I knew that the ankle snap could be applied to him. I just put more attention on developing his strengths rather than changing his weaknesses." Hirai added to that natural building blocks the "strengths" that Hungarian coach Jozsef Nagy had seen in Mike Barrowman (USA): a strong glide from a kick timed with pull to reduce the dead zone inherent in the stroke to a minimum, if not to remove it altogether. Kitajima and Leisel Jones (she above all of either gender perhaps) led the class during the 2000s. Hirai estimated that most specialists could be found lapping in 21 to 24 strokes. He got Kitajima down to 18-20. Hirai is now working with Cameron Van Der Burgh (RSA), a bomb-blast in poly last year and among those most likely to live up to billing in textile too in the years ahead as he takes on Hirai's home hero, now training in the States.

The Top 100 Memories:

Part I: 91 - 100, the year 2000.

Part II: 81 - 90, the year 2001.

Part III: 71 - 80, the year 2002.

Part IV: 61 - 70, the year 2003.

Part V: 51 - 60, the year 2004.

Part VI: 41 - 50, the year 2005.

Part VII: 31 - 40, the year 2006.

Part VIII: 21 - 30, the year 2007.

Part IX: 11 - 19, the years 2008-09.

Part X: No 10 - the best 20 swimmers of the decade

Part X: No 9 - the top 10 nations

Part X: No 8 - US and Them

Part X: No 7 - players and contributors