Coaches
Ryan has been coaching for over 20 year at all levels of swimming. On top of being the Head Coach of SFA, he also runs Catalyst Aquatics, a high performance swim lab complete with under water cameras and extensive technology to provide feedback for swimmers from beginners to national level athletes.
Ryan is both a swimming and coaching alumni at Simon Fraser University and believes that high performance swimming can only be achieved with heavy attention to stroke correction mixed with a complete program.
SFA Elite Group Coach and Director of Collegiate Programming
Coach Liam has over 35 years of coaching experience in competitive swimming. As the former Head Varsity Swim Coach of Simon Fraser University, he has coached swimmers to 15 NAIA National team titles since 1992. His swimmers have represented Canada in World Championships, World University Games, Pan Pacific Games and the Pan American Games, setting three Canadian records, with 31 swims currently ranked in Canada's all-time top 25. His team has won 374 NAIA individual national event titles, 143 individual national champions, 62 NAIA national championship records, top 10 NCAA DII team finish for Men (2019) and Women (2013), 92 NCAA All-American individual swims, 42 NCAA All-Americans, 12 NCAA Scholar All-Americans, and 2 NCAA individual national champions. Coach Liam is a 5-time recipient of the NAIA National Coach of the year award. Coach Liam will be working with SFA Elite Group, focusing on development of swimmers at the National Championship, Canadian Trials and International levels of competition.
Sean is very excited to be working with Simon Fraser Aquatics as a swim coach and Strength & Conditioning coach. SFA is where Sean began his swimming career in 2002 when he transitioned from BC Summer Swimming. Sean spent many years swimming both at Simon Fraser University and SFA as he worked towards his goal of representing Canada in 2009 and 2010.
This experience around the high performance teams that supported Team Canada is what ultimately led Sean to his chosen career path of athlete preparation. He is extremely thankful for all the lessons he learned in swimming, training and competition and he continues to apply these skills and lessons to his everyday life.
Sean began coaching in 2002 with his old summer club, the Burnaby Mountain Mantas, and continued to be involved with them until 2014. Since finishing his swimming career, Sean transitioned to working in Strength and conditioning – working with various national team members in field hockey, figure skating, weightlifting and most notably the Canadian mogul ski team for 5 years while he was with the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific.
Sean holds a masters degree in strength and conditioning from St. Mary’s University in London England that he completed during his time with moguls and CSIP. Many of the athlete’s Sean worked with have gone on to represent Canada at the Olympic Games, with some winning Olympic medals. Sean was most recently recognized in 2019 with a Petro Canada Award for Coaching Excellence for his contribution to Mikael Kingsbury’s preparation en route to his double gold medal performance at the 2019 Freestyle Skiing World Championships.
Sean is extremely excited to be back in the sport that he is most passionate about, taking the lessons he learned while travelling and working with some of the best athletes in the world and studying abroad. He looks forward to working with a new generation of SFA athletes!
Andrew is a swimmer and student from Simon Fraser University. He is graduating with a Psychology major and an Education psychology minor in spring 2021. Andrew started his swim career in the BCSSA in Port Coquitlam. Eventually he joined SFA and swam under Coach Cory Beatt, setting some club records. He swam on the provincial team for 2 years, won gold and silver at the 2015 WCSG and competed at Olympic trials.
In his varsity career he was a three time all American, and his best placing at Canadian nationals was 5th in the 1500free. Andrew has coached BCSSA and swim camps in the Simon Fraser region for 4 years and worked part and full time with SFA. Andrew also has experience coaching weight training for swimmers. His main goal as a coach is to teach athletes how to enjoy the process of swim training and competing. Andrew takes a holistic approach to swim training believing that training is a balance between technical, physiological and psychological skills that can all be taught and developed.
Hattie started coaching since 2014 and has coached swimmers and tri-athletes with ages ranging from 5 to 60 years old. Her versatility and energy adds a great dimension to SFA's coaching team, adding fun on top of skills development for our swimmers. Hattie is currently swimming with SFU Swimming, and is looking forward to sharing her experiences, skills and knowledge with our young swimmers!
Trained in Functional Medicine and a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Eleni is a dynamic part of our SFA Coaching team. Eleni has a passion in health and wellness her whole life and has a particular interest in gut health and therapeutic diet plans that will support one's journey to an optimal well-being and good health. Certified in the BCRPA Weight Training Program, fitness and personal training has also been at the forefront of Eleni's passions. Having worked with athletes from a wide range of disciplines and age groups, Eleni is looking forward to share her skills and knowledge with SFA athletes.
Coach Bart is in his 3rd season coaching the SFA stroke clinic. He has coached competitive swimming for over 35 years and have worked with talented athletes from 5 to 21 years of age. His goal is to have swimmers understand why good swimming technique is so important.
Our goals with the SFA clinics are for the swimmers to learn and develop their technique, understanding, and self-confidence of the competitive swimming strokes. We strive to create an atmosphere where the swimmers continuously improve and learn through structured practice with consistent feedback so they can become the best athletes possible.