Canada Artistic Swimming (CAS) is pleased to announce that Olympic medallist Yelyzaveta (Lyza) Yakhno has joined the coaching team for its Senior National Team.
Lyza has moved to Canada from her native Ukraine, where she was part of the national team program as an athlete from 2006 – 2021. She began her stellar competitive career as a junior athlete representing Ukraine, winning silver medals in solo, duet and free team at the 2016 FINA Junior World Championships in Kazan.
Most recently she won a bronze medal with Team Ukraine at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo and was named FINA’s best female artistic swimmer in 2018.
In addition to her accomplishments as an athlete, Liza completed a Bachelor of Physical Culture and Sport degree, specializing in coaching activities, at the Kharkiv Academy State of Physical Culture, one of the oldest sports management universities in Ukraine. She followed that with a Master of Physical Culture and Sport degree where she specialized in psychology in the field of physical culture and sport.
The tri-lingual Ukrainian, who speaks English and Russian as well as her native language, is excited to come to Canada and join the national program as Assistant Coach. “I love my new job! I am eager to continue my growth from athlete to coach and I am happy to share my experience with Team Canada. I will do my best to see them on the podium one day!”
Liza is currently in Canada completing her safe sport / inclusion and related education pre-requisites and will begin working full-time with Canada’s Senior National Team at the Institut national du sport du Québec (INS) in Montreal in late September. She joins Head Coach Gábor Szauder and the superb coaching and choreography team who are helping to guide the senior team program– Kasia Kulesza (National Next Gen Head Coach), Karine Doré, Claudia Holzner and Jacqueline Simoneau.
Stability, Culture Growth and Governance Best-Practice are Key to Canada Artistic Swimming’s Strategic Plan
CAS Board President and Vice President re-elected
At the first meeting of the season for the CAS Board of Directors, Florence Klein was re-elected President by her Board peers and Lindsay Duncan was also re-elected as Vice President for the 2022-2023 term.
Excited to begin another year of leading the CAS Board, Florence is proud to be surrounded by a team of seasoned administrators. On the eve of major changes in artistic swimming – in the scoring system and its approach to inclusion – she outlined the objectives of the Board for the year:
“The Board’s focus for the coming season will be to complete a strategic plan leading out of the current eight-year strategy to take the organization through the next quadrennial. The plan will feature continuation of commitment to membership growth – resulting from organization-wide attention to inclusivity and expanding opportunity for underserviced communities in Canada. It also includes the recruitment of males into the sport at all levels – mainly through increased adoption of the AquaGO! program. Organizational culture and performance excellence will continue to be areas of emphasis.”
The other members of the CAS Board are: Sara Hart (Alberta), Jason Herbert (British Columbia), Jessica Rutledge (Ontario), Elise Truscott (Saskatchewan), Dawn Wilson (British Columbia) and Olivia Zawadiuk ( British Columbia – Athlete Council Chair).