Competition Coach of the Month: Chris Plumb

Competitive Coach of the Month is a recurring SwimSwam feature that spotlights a U.S. coach who has stood out from the competition. As with any award, Competitive Coach of the Month is a subjective exercise that aims to highlight a coach whose work has notable context—perhaps a coach who has clearly been in the spotlight, or one whose work has been a little more under the radar among other stories. If your favorite coach wasn’t selected, please feel free to respectfully acknowledge them in our comments section.

He has been the team’s head coach for nearly two decades. Chris Plumb has consistently achieved top results with his swimmers at the Carmel Swim Club, which was clearly evident at the U.S. Olympic Qualifiers.

Plumb sent eight swimmers to compete in the country’s most prestigious competition and secured two swimmers a place on the Olympic team.

He competed in front of spectators in his home state and Aaron Shackell made waves on the first night when he won the men’s 400m freestyle and became the first member of the US Olympic team in the pool. With a time of 3:45.46, he beat his previous best time of 3:47.00 by over a second and a half.

Shackell, 19, left Cal last season to start over at Plumb in Carmel ahead of the Trials.

Two nights later, Shackell’s younger sister, 17-year-old Alex Shackell She joined him on the Olympic team (although it was not official at the time) by finishing 6th in the women’s 200m freestyle, coming within 35 hundredths of her personal best of 1:57.05.

She added another individual event, the 200m butterfly, to her Paris program and broke the national age group record for girls 17-18 years (2:06.10) in the semifinals before taking 2nd place Regan Smith in the final in 2:06.69.

Shackell also swam a new personal best in the 100m butterfly, breaking the 57-second barrier for the first time with a time of 56.78s in the semi-finals, before dropping out of the final to concentrate on the 200m freestyle.

Aaron Shackell He also won a swim-off to secure a place in the final of the men’s 200m freestyle. Under great pressure, he swam his fastest time of the competition (1:46.95) before eventually finishing 8th in the final.

The two Shackells were joined by Alex’s twin brother, Andrew Shackellwho qualified for the trials in the men’s 200 m freestyle swimming and finished in 38th place (1:50.10).

Also for Carmel at Lucas Oil Stadium were Kayla Han, Lynsey Bowen, Ellie Clarke, Molly Sweeney And Gregg Enoch.

Han, 16, set her personal best time of 4:08.21 in the women’s 400m freestyle final and took fourth place. She also narrowly missed out on a place in the 400m individual medley final (9th place).

18-year-old Enoch also impressed by reaching the final of the men’s 400m individual medley, where he finished 7th. He also achieved personal bests in the 400m freestyle and 200m individual medley.

Plumb brought the two Shackell siblings onto the Olympic team and was one of six coaches appointed as assistants for the US team in Paris.

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