Puzzles fascinate Marc-Andre Pelletier.

Pelletier enjoys mastering games on his cell phone. Even more rewarding is solving the puzzle of a swimmer in the water. It might be correcting their technique, planning the proper training regime or finding the key to motivating them.

“For me it’s a puzzle,” said Pelletier, who has been head coach at the Club de Natation Region de Quebec in Quebec City since 2004. “Using the strengths of everyone, working on their weaknesses but always trying to reach the best for everyone.”

He wants his swimmer to be engaged and have fun.

Pelletier is one of the six Swimming Canada coaches attending the Tokyo Paralympic Games. During his career the two-time Swimming Canada Coach of the Year recipient has been on the staff at Olympics, world championships, Pan Pacific Championships, Commonwealth Games and FISU Games. This will be his first Paralympics.

“For me it’s a great experience,” said Pelletier. “I know that the Games are different but it’s the same goals. We want to reach performance.”

One of the puzzles a Para-swimming coach must solve is dealing with the  different impairments of the athletes.

When training Olympics swimmers, most are cut from the same physical mold. At the Paralympics athletes can be visually impaired, be missing a limb, not have use of parts of their body, have an intellectual impairment, or deal with cerebral palsy or neurological disorders.

Training methods have to be adapted. Coaches have to make sure a swimmer’s stroke is legal for the category they compete in.

“It’s really a puzzle,” said Pelletier. “We have to find a balance and it’s challenging. It brings me experience.

“It’s a different way of seeing things.”

Among the Para-swimmers Pelletier coaches are some of Canada’s best chances for a medal in Tokyo.

Aurelie Rivard, the 25-year-old from St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, Que., won three gold and a silver medal at the Rio 2016 Paralympics. She broke two world records and four Canadian records.

Rivard joined Pelletier’s club in January 2020 after spending time at the High Performance Centre _ Quebec.

“She knows what I have to offer,” he said. “She wants to reach her best.”

Nicolas-Guy Turbide, 24 of Quebec City, won bronze in the 100-metre backstroke in Rio, then silver in the same event at the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships.

Pelletier called Turbide a professional.

“He’s really committed,” he said. “He’s really focused on what he’s doing. He’s really award of where he is and what he’s doing.”

During his career Pelletier has coached Olympic athletes like three-time Olympian Katerine Savard and Sarah Mailhot a member of the 2012 Paralympic team.

The athletes may follow different roads to success but the destination is the same.

“All the athletes at that level have the same kind of pattern,” said Pelletier. “They are usually intense, they have the drive, they need competition. They have high expectations for themselves.

“I treat them in the same manner. They are different in some respects but for the sport they are closely the same.”

Some of the training methods used for Olympic swimmers have to be adapted for the Para-swimmers.

“All the (swimmers) want to know what is best for them,” said Pelletier. “I want them to learn to be comfortable in the race,  with the strokes.”

Pelletier was a competitive swimmer when he was young. He started as a part-time coach in 1996 and graduated from university in 2001.

He said the search for performance is what attracted him to coaching.

“I’m addicted to trying to reach the best performance in what we are doing every day we can.”

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the Tokyo Paralympics to be delayed a year. It also closed swimming pools and training facilities across Canada.

Dealing with the challenge of getting his swimmers ready for the Paralympics was another puzzle but Pelletier is confident it’s one he has solved.

His swimmers have been back in the water training. Although the Para-swimmers did not have a trials, most have been involved in some sort of internal time trials.

“I was more scared if the Olympics were held last year,” he said, “We’re in good shape now. “