MONTREAL; - Ten swimming coaches were recently honoured with 2011-12 Petro-Canada Coaching Excellence Awards at the Petro-Canada Sport Leadership Awards Gala.
 
These awards recognize coaches whose athletes have won gold, silver or bronze medals at World Championships, Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Special Olympics World Games.

"The sport of swimming was a leader for Canada on the world stage at the Olympics, and even more so at the Paralympics. A coach can't win a medal but behind every athlete is a great coach. It's rewarding to see these outstanding people receive much-deserved honours here at home," said Swimming Canada CEO Pierre Lafontaine.
 
Randy Bennett, Ron Jacks and Tom Johnson received awards in recognition of the Olympic medals won by their respective athletes: Ryan Cochrane, Richard Weinberger and Brent Hayden.

On the Paralympic side, seven coaches were recognized (athletes in brackets): Pierre Lamy (Benoit Huot),France Latendresse (Aurelie Rivard), Reg Shaw (Nathan Stein), Gord Veldman (Brianna Nelson), Reg Chappell(Summer Mortimer), Chris Nelson (Amber Thomas) and Peter Carpenter (Valérie Grand'Maison).

Carpenter has been no stranger to accolades recently. The head coach of the McGill University swim team received an award for coaching excellence from the Club de la médaille d'or, and was named coach of the month for September by the Institut national du sport du Quebec. He's also up for the Journal de Montréal Award as Women’s Team Coach of the Year at the 27th Quebec University Sports Awards Gala presented by RDS and Organized by the Quebec Foundation for Athletic Excellence