SINGAPORE — He is the last piece of the puzzle in Singapore swimming’s high-performance goals and ambitions — and Stephan Widmer is ready for the challenge.

The Swiss-born Australian, appointed the new national head coach and performance director in May, has been tasked by the Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) with building on Joseph Schooling’s historic Olympic triumph last August and developing a long-term blueprint for success. His contract will run through to the Tokyo 2020 Games. 

Citing 15 years of experience in high-performance swimming, as well as his experience with the importance of education and compulsory army service — he grew up with both in Switzerland — Widmer is confident he can fulfil the mandate that has been handed to him.

“I feel like my background has prepared me for this,” he said at his unveiling on Monday afternoon (July 10) at the Volkswagen showroom at Alexandra Road. 

“It doesn’t matter where you come from, there are certain things you have to do (in high performance). We have to find solutions, we have to make it happen. 

“I have to learn to translate my knowledge into the Singapore sporting culture ... to start shifting and influencing the mindsets.” 

The 50-year-old’s “No 1” priority is to improve the level and standards of local coaches in order to create a strong high-performance ecosystem.

“I want to shift the coaches to another level, to work and engage with them,” he said. “My No 1 goal as a coach is to improve myself ... and therefore improve my athletes. They have to learn to integrate professional development in a serious way into their coaching journey.”

SSA vice-president (swimming) Joscelin Yeo described Widmer as a “coach of coaches” and believes he can help mentor Olympic-level coaches, which, in turn, will “strengthen the entire chain” of swimming development from the ground up.

Widmer will work alongside SSA technical director Sonya Porter and National Training Centre (NTC) head coach Gary Tan, and the latter believes their new colleague’s expertise will be hugely beneficial.

“He’s very meticulous in the way he approaches his coaching methodology and ... concepts,” Tan said. “I think for me, that's very crucial. We need someone to guide our coaching community in that way as well.”

Widmer, who will bring his wife and two kids over to settle here, believes there is no shortage of swimming and coaching talent in Singapore, which he describes as “an environment with great facilities”.

“Overall, there’s a lot of talent in the water,” he noted. “(The swimmers have a) very good feel for the water, are skilful and travel smoothly ... that excites me, there’s some great ankle flexibility and underwater, they look better than most of the Australian swimmers.

“Singapore is big enough population-wise (to produce talent) ... we want to shift the culture of understanding what it’s like to create high performance over the next three years.”

Widmer added that plans will also be put in place to gear Singapore towards Tokyo 2020. The goal is to get more swimmers into finals of major competitions and build progressively up from the regional to continental, then to the world level.

The set-up in local swimming has evolved in recent years and Tan, who worked with previous head coach Sergio Lopez, was quick to recognise that.

“Two years ago when Sergio came in, he was just trying to build those building blocks to get the kids to think in a certain manner,” the 35-year-old former Olympian said.

“Now the kids are actually thinking in a certain way and doing the right things, but how do we get them from that environment to the high-performance level? That's where I think Stephan really fits in well.

Praising Porter’s work in integrating sports science into the set-up, Tan added: “What we want to see is the (continuous flow of swimmers competing at the) 2020, 2024, 2028 (Olympics) kind of longevity.”

Schooling’s achievement has shattered the glass ceiling for Singapore swimming and Widmer urged the community to believe in its dreams.

“Did I believe there could be more (to come from Singapore)?” Widmer responded when asked why he took up the role.

“There’s people here who want more as well ... I hope this will now bring through the next generation of swimmers and coaches, who are starting to believe.”