Di Nino with Russia at Olympics
2012-06-14
Editorial Office
The Russian Swimming Federation has announced that Andrea Di Nino will be one of the national team coaches for the 2012 Olympic Games

Courtesy SwimNews

The Russian Swimming Federation has announced that Andrea Di Nino will be one of the national team coaches for the 2012 Olympic Games in London this summer. 

The 39-year-old Italian founder and head coach of the ADN Swim Project, a squad sponsored by Arena, is the first foreigner to be appointed as an Olympic coach of the Russian swimming team. Di Nino, who led the Trinidad and Tobago team to the 2004 Games in Athens is no stranger to an international role, his squad including swimmers from several nations. 

Two of his protégés at the ADN Swim Project, Evgeny Korotyshkin and Sergey Fesikov, will race for Russia at London 2012, while Commonwealth 50m butterfly champion Jason Dunford will race for Kenya. Until recently, Milorad Čavić (SRB and now back in the US) was also a squad member.

With an academic background in biomedical science and technology and closing in on two decades of coaching, Di Nino spent three years at the Coral Springs Swim Team in Florida, as assistant to the late Olympic swimming coach Michael Lohberg. That experienced inspired him to launch the ADN Swim Project in 2005. 

On his Russian appointment to an Olympic team led by Dr Andrei Vorontsov, Di Nino said: "This is one of the greatest honours I could receive as a coach and I am honoured by the fact that the Swimming Federation has chosen an Italian coach. To participate in the Olympics is already the biggest dream of all coaches, imagine doing it as the coach of Russia, one of the historic powers of world swimming! It's a satisfaction that I would like to share with my athletes and all the staff members of ADN."