Name Duncan Laing | Role Coach | |
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Died September 13, 2008, Dunedin, New Zealand | ||
Swimming coach Duncan Laing shares some golden memories Campbell Live Video 3 News
Andrew James Duncan Laing CNZM OBE (20 June 1933 – 13 September 2008), generally known as Duncan Laing, was a New Zealand swimming coach based in Dunedin. He coached Olympian Danyon Loader, winner of two gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and a silver medal at Barcelona in 1992, and Philip Rush, current world record holder for the fastest two and three way swim of the English Channel. He began teaching at Moana Pool in 1966, and over forty years training in Dunedin included 11 Olympic athletes. In 2003, Michael Phelps visited New Zealand to train under Laing. He had since retired from professional coaching, and received treatment in 2006 for melanoma on his leg and a brain tumour.
He married Betty Burgess in 1951, and they had six children, four sons and two daughters (one deceased). Besides coaching he was an Otago rugby selector in the 1980s, and ran the Moana House rehabilitation centre with his wife.
Laing was awarded the OBE in 1993, and made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in June 2006.
He was born in New Plymouth on 20 June 1933 and died in Dunedin on 13 September 2008 at the age of 77.