After not even making the American staff for the 2012 Summer Olympics, USC’s Catherine Vogt has been named as the head coach for the 2013 World Championship open water squad, USA Swimming officially revealed publicly today.
That announcement also confirmed the appointments of Vogt’s boss, Dave Salo, and Bob Bowman to coach the women’s and men’s pool teams, respectively, which we reported earlier this week.
Vogt is one of the best “assistant coaches” in swimming. Alongside Salo, she was the coach responsible for taking Haley Anderson from a very good distance swimmer in the pool to an Olympic silver-medalist in the 10km open water swim in London.
The transformation was truly breathtaking last year; Anderson improved in nearly every facet of her swimming after taking up open water seriously, including an NCAA title in the 500 free and very nearly making the Olympic team in the pool as well (she was 3rd in the 800 free at Trials).
Vogt was the coach who would wake up on early mornings and venture out into the bays and oceans on the California coasts with Anderson to push her training. She previously coached Chip Peterson at North Carolina, who was one of the best young open water swimmers in the world at the time.
This is not her first go-around at the international level, though. She was the head coach of the U.S. Open Water National Team that competed in Rome and an assistant on the 2005 and 2006 (Open Water Swimming Championships) teams. She is also given some credit within the open water world for the meteoric rise of Ous Mellouli, who like Anderson went from novice open water swimmer to Olympic medalist in London: his being gold. Mellouli, though he worked with many coaches in the runup to the Games, had Vogt alongside as a member of the Tunisian staff at the Olympics.
Outstanding Choice! Cat Vogt will get the job done right!