Coached at the Highest Level. Taught With the Same Care for Every Beginner.
Trentham Swim School was built on a simple belief: the same coaching principles that produce Olympians also produce confident, safe, happy beginner swimmers — because both start with getting the fundamentals right.
Trentham Swim School is led by Gary Hollywood, an Olympic swimming coach with over three decades of experience across New Zealand, Australia, and the UK. Gary has coached swimmers to Commonwealth Games gold medals, the Tokyo Olympics, Pan Pacs, World Championships, and Youth Olympic and Commonwealth Youth Games teams. Athletes under his guidance have broken more than 200 New Zealand age-group and open records since 2005.
Gary is a Gold Licence coach, a First International Fellow and Life Member of the American Swimming Coaches Association, and holds a degree in Economics & Geography from the University of Ulster. He has been mentored across his career by some of the sport’s most respected figures, including Bill Sweetenham, Duncan Laing (coach of double Olympic gold medallist Danyon Loader), and performance psychologist Dr Bruce Lawrie.
Alongside his elite coaching work, Gary is also a trained mindfulness meditation facilitator and volunteers his time coaching swimmers with disabilities, including as Head Coach (Swimming) for Hutt Valley Special Olympics.
That same standard of care — technically excellent, patient, and genuinely invested in every swimmer’s progress — is what every child and adult receives at Trentham Swim School, from their very first lesson.
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