Rikki joined Mount Kelly in January 2021 from Team Luton Swimming Club where he worked as Head Coach for 3 years, leading and mentoring a growing coaching team, as well as guiding the club to promotion to the top division in the Junior League and narrowly missing out on the same achievement in the Arena League. Rikki also coached many swimmers to success from county all the way through to international level.
Prior to this, Rikki started his coaching journey at City of Coventry where in 2011 he began coaching just 3 hours per week working with the junior groups of 7-10 year olds. In 2012 he was then assigned lead coach of the Senior Performance 2 squad (ages 12-15), which consisted of county and regional swimmers. After 2 years of coaching Senior Performance 2 Rikki had guided 5 swimmers to national level, an achievement that didn’t go unnoticed, which lead to him being offered the Assistant Head Coach role and lead coach of Junior Elite (ages 11-15 Regional through to National). Over his 4-year period in this role Rikki saw many of his swimmers obtain great success at national level and move on to Senior Elite to develop further and have very successful swimming careers.
Rikki also swam to a junior international level himself. He started his journey at Nuneaton and Bedworth Swimming Club in the Midlands at the age of 5. Rikki swam for Nuneaton and Bedworth from 1995-2006, and during that time he qualified for 10 events at summer nationals every year from the ages of 12-15, and also swam at his first Olympic and Commonwealth trials, before moving to City of Coventry in 2006. After the move to Coventry, Rikki developed his skills and became a more rounded athlete which lead to national and junior international success. He went on to win multiple medals at a national level, and made finals across 10 different events throughout his swimming career. Rikki also represented GB in a number of junior international events, most notably the Commonwealth Youth Games in India in 2008 where he competed in the 50m, 100m, and 200m Backstroke and the 100m Freestyle, making 2 finals, in the 100m Backstroke finishing 7th, and the 200m Backstroke finishing 5th.
Rikki still loves to swim and has competed a number of times since stopping his full-time swim training back in 2014. In his spare time, he really enjoys a good walk/hike and exploring the outdoors.
