Ontario Artistic Swimming is pleased to announce the 2023 Provincial Team Coaching Staff who will be leading our teams this summer. OAS will field a Youth Performance Team, Youth Development Team, 12U Performance Team, and 12U Development Team. All Provincial Teams will compete at the 2023 SYNC Invitational, which will be hosted by OAS at the Markham Pan Am Centre, July 20-22. The Youth Performance Team will also have the opportunity to qualify to represent Canada at the 2023 Youth World Championships or 2023 Pan Am Artistic Swimming Championships.
The coaches who will be leading our Ontario athletes this summer are:
Youth Performance Team Head Coach: Lola Shnayder Mazour
Youth Performance Team Assistant Coach: Kelly Hogan
12U Performance Team Head Coach: Julia Thornton
12U Performance Team Assistant Coach: Evelyn Young
Youth Development Team Lead Coach: Stephanie Breitigam
Youth Development Team Assistant Coach: Gillian King
12U Development Team Lead Coach: Jackee King
12U Development Team Assistant Coach: Amy Cameron
Congratulations to the 2023 Provincial Teams Coaching Staff – we look forward to a terrific program this summer and a successful competitive experience at SYNC under your strong leadership!
Please see below for 2023 Coaching Staff Bios.
Lola Shnayder Mazour
Lola has been involved in Artistic Swimming for more than 20 years in Ukraine, Israel and Canada at clubs and National Team levels. Starting her synchro career in Ukraine, former Soviet Union and competed to the Junior National Level. After her studies for Bachelor of Physical Education and Sport Science at the Wingate Institute, she established Synchro Club which became over the years one of the largest and most successful clubs in the country. Over the next 15 years, she was Head Coach of Ashdod Synchro Club and served as Israel National Team Coach at the Junior and Age Group levels. Lola has been coaching at Olympium Artistic Swimming Club since 2016, in both High Performance and Competitive programs with Senior, Junior, 13-15’s, 12U athletes and Masters. Lola was the 2022 13-15 Provincial Team Assistant Coach, helping to guide Team Ontario to gold medals in solo, duet and team at the 2022 SYNC Invitational, as well as representing Canada at the 2022 FINA Youth World Championships, Charlotte USA.
Kelly Hogan
Kelly is a career coach with 20+ years of coaching knowledge. Her experience includes coaching all levels and ages of high-performance and competitive swimmers, from beginner to national. Her athletes have had success with numerous Provincial and National podium results. She had previous success as the head coach of the Ontario Provincial Team, travelling to competitions in Peru, Las Vegas and Hawaii. She has been coaching with Waterloo Artistic Swimming Club for the past ten years, primarily concentrating on developing young athletes.
Julia Thornton
Julia is excited to work with the 12U provincial team again this season. She brings over 10 years of coaching experience to the 2023 provincial team coaching staff, coaching both provincially and nationally. She guided the 2022 11-12 Provincial Team to a Gold medal at the 2022 SYNC Invitational. Currently, Julia coaches at the Durham Artistic swimming club, working with Youth and Junior athletes. This season, Julia was an OAS High Performance Provincial Coach, coaching the High Performance Academy camps and working with Ontario’s HP athletes. Julia’s coaching philosophy is building and guiding her athletes to reach their highest potential, in and out of the pool. She strives to have a well balanced and structured training environment, full with positive goal achievements and happy athletes. She also believes in teamwork, amongst coaches and athletes! Julia is looking forward to working with the Team Ontario athletes this summer!
Evelyn Young
Evelyn has been involved with artistic swimming for over 15 years as an athlete and a coach. Her artistic swimming career began at Olympium Artistic Swimming Club where she swam in their high performance program and she now enjoys swimming on the Western University Artistic Swimming club team. Evelyn is currently the Assistant Competitive Head Coach at London Regional Artistic Swimming club as well as coach for one of the 13-15 teams. She is a certified competition development coach and was part of the OAS provincial team coaching staff in 2022. Aside from coaching, Evelyn is finishing her studies in Media Information and Techniculture with a certificate in Digital Communications at Western University. Evelyn’s goal as a coach is to provide an encouraging environment for her swimmers to develop both as athletes and individuals.
Stephanie Breitigam
Stephanie Breitigam is currently the high-performance program lead at the Olympium Artistic Swimming Club. She has five years’ experience working with OAS Provincial Teams as an apprentice, assistant, and head coach of the 10&Under program, as well as assistant coach of the 13-15 team in 2017 and Junior team in 2018. Stephanie was a Junior national team apprentice coach in 2022 and co-coached the Senior B team for a one-week training camp and virtual competition in 2021. In 2013 she developed and implemented a 6 week summer camp and seasonal program for a synchro club in Curacao. Stephanie continues to swim and compete as a master athlete and is looking forward to her 4th master’s worlds in Japan this summer. She has a passion for the sport and believes in its ability to build character, confidence, and a sense of accomplishment. Her coaching philosophy is to empower each athlete to achieve their full potential as an individual and as part of a team, promoting the values of respect, accountability, and self-confidence.
Gillian King
Gillian has been coaching for over ten years and is currently the assistant head coach at Nepean Artistic Swim Club. Over her coaching career, she has coached athletes in every age category from 8U to masters and also works to develop the next generation of coaches and build their excitement for the sport! She has a masters degree in Mental Performance from the University of Ottawa and her coaching philosophy is that success is supported by hard work, a combination of athletes giving 100% every day and coaches giving the support and trust that the athletes need to grow. She is very excited for the opportunity to work with the provincial team program this summer and help athletes meet their goals!
Jackee King
Jackee has over 15 years of coaching experience, including leading athletes and teams of all ages and levels to podium finishes and championship titles. She is a Competition Development NCCP Certified Coach and currently works at Granite Artistic Swimming Club as a Lead Coach for the Youth Competitive program. In 2019, Jackee was an Assistant Coach for the OAS 12U High Performance and Development Teams that captured Gold (HP) and Silver (DT) at SYNC Invitational in Gatineau, Quebec. Jackee was also named “Coach of the Year” in 2018 and she wrote the “Flexibility & Extension Exercises” program for Trillium Awards Manual in 2012. As an athlete, Jackee trained and competed at the National and International level, and was Senior Solo Champion in 2012 and 2013 as well as being part of the Toronto Synchro Masters Team that won Gold in the Tech and Free Team events at the 2018 Pan American Masters Championships in Orlando, Florida. In addition to her coaching education, Jackee has a Specialized Honours B.A. in Psychology from York University and a diploma in Social Service Work from Seneca College. Jackee has facilitated many youth programs that focus on developing healthy relationships, teamwork, self-esteem and setting goals that she integrates into her training. Jackee inspires confidence and motivates athletes to work hard and perform at their best. Her coaching style is goal oriented with a philosophy to improve one percent in every attempt and to be better than yesterday
Amy Cameron
Amy has been coaching artistic swimming for 8 years, and is currently coaching the 11-12 competitive team at GO Capital Artistic Swimming Club. She is a Competition Development certified coach, a Level 1 judge, and studies Nursing at the University of Ottawa. As a coach, she has worked with athletes of all ages and loves to help swimmers develop their technical skills. She is looking forward to an exciting summer with the athletes and coaches of the Ontario provincial teams.