Marianne alvarez
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Marianne was born in Mexico, and moved to Canada in 1987 with her husband, raising her family (four beautiful daughters) in the Okanagan with a focus on strong values and a healthy lifestyle through sports. She re-located to Vancouver in 2005, coaching with EBSC for 5 years before taking a brief hiatus. Marianne returned to EBSC the fall of 2014 after organizing the first ever Para-Relay to swim the English Channel that summer. Marianne has 30 years of coaching experience including 10 years with EBSC, and also coaches Honu, a para swim team in Vancouver, that she started in 2008.
Dedicated and committed to swimming, Marianne was part of the National Swim Team at the FISU Games and was the first swimmer to represent Mexico in Fin Swimming. A passionate open water swimmer, in 1985 Marianne was the first Mexican and first German woman to swim the English Channel. Having coached Para athletes at an elite level (the London 2012 Paralympics and Toronto 2015 Para Pam American Games), Marianne is eager to share her expertise, experience, and passion for swimming with both competitive and fitness swimmers. Marianne has a true passion for swimming and her coaching philosophy is "Believing is Achieving", a motto which continues to guide her daily life. "Swimming is not just a sport, it's a lifestyle where you will learn important values for life. I am very proud and excited to be part of EBSC." For more about Marianne's incredible work with Honu, or to donate to her ongoing fundraising efforts, please visit: www.honuswim.com. |
Cliff Thorbes
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Cliff Thorbes is originally from Ottawa. His first memories of swimming are up at a family cottage and swimming in the lake with his sisters where they would pretend to be Olympic divers performing difficult dives off the edge of the dock. He began competitive swimming with the Ottawa Kingfish Swim Club at the age of 14 and later switched clubs to swim with the Ottawa Y Olympians Swim Club. His biggest accomplishment as a swimmer was finally breaking that magic minute mark for the 100 metre freestyle at the age of 16. By the age of 25, he was Head Swim Coach for the same club. Eventually, Cliff tempted by the natural rugged beauty and more temperate climate of the West Coast, decided to head out west to BC.
Cliff didn’t totally abandon sports and coaching though. In 2000, he joined up to play softball with WESA and by 2007 found himself coaching again. He coached his last year of softball in 2017 deciding it was time to try something else. In September of 2018, the stars lined up for Cliff to coach swimming again when he joined EBSC as a coach. He loves working with EBSC swimmers because they inspire him. He describes them as a diverse set of athletes that share a love for swimming and the pursuit of well-being. He hopes to instill in the swimmers he coaches that anything is possible. Two of his fondest memories so far with EBSC have been coaching his first Christmas swim camp and full summer of Sunday morning workouts outdoors at Second Beach pool. His approach to coaching? Each swimmer is unique and anything is possible. It all starts with a swimmer-centred approach and encouraging the swimmer to believe in themselves, remain focused on their personal goals and having fun. Besides Cliff’s love of swimming, he loves being outdoors and enjoys gardening, hiking, kayaking, snow-shoeing, and cross-country skiing. He is self-employed as a Mental Health Instructor, Therapeutic Horticulturist and Artist. His purpose in career and life is helping others achieve their potential. |
Vlad shirokov
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Vlad was born in Russia and started competitive swimming at the age of 6. A year later, he and his family relocated to South Africa where he continued his training. At the age of 14, his family moved, once more, this time to Canada but, by then, he had quit swimming.
At the age of 20, he decided to return to the sport but having been out of the water for 6 years, he almost drowned in the first 25 meters of his swim. Fortunately, after 3 weeks of training, he managed to get his strokes back and decided to give competitive swimming another shot. In 2010, he went to Nanaimo B.C for the National Masters Championships, his first race in over 6 years, and ended up with 3 golds and a provincial record. After creating a little buzz from his comeback, he got a try out at UBC’s national training center, swimming alongside some of the best swimmers in Canada. Unfortunately, though, this was not the best move for Vlad as the training program proved to be too much too soon, leaving him injured and, after one painful season, he decided to opt out. He has been self-trained ever since and continues to compete at both the national & International level, winning 2 bronze medals at the 2014 FINA World Masters Championships. His love, knowledge of and passion for the sport of swimming has led him to coaching. After having coached the Percy Norman Masters for the last 5 years, he has decided to expand his coaching resume and join EBSC this year. He is looking forward to diversifying his coaching skills and helping EBSC swimmers improve their technique and speed and, in doing so, their enjoyment of the sport. |
Bryan Iliscupidez
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Bryan Iliscpuidez is enjoying his second season as a coach for English Bay. At the age of 10, he began noncompetitive swimming at the Red Deer Catalina Swim club in Alberta. Following that first year, Bryan earned a spot from Regionals to Provincials by the end of the full season. The only issue was with breaststroke being his predominant stroke, having been faster than his freestyle times.
Bryan completed his final year as a club swimmer at age 17, making a provincial team to swim at the North American Challenge Cup in LA, and wrapped up his competitive history at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Trials. He competed a single year with the University of Alberta Golden Bears, which ended up becoming very mentally gruesome, having lost the affinity for his reasons to swim. While taking time off from swimming, he transferred to, and graduated from, Red Deer College with a Business Marketing degree in 2012, but still coaching for the Catalina swim club. This reinvigorated his love for the sport, experiencing the joy from his athletes from a day to day basis. Bryan is looking forward to meeting and learning about every swimmer in EBSC, so please bare with him as he continues to relearn names he's been given several times. |
Emily Adamczyk
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Emily Adamczyk was born and raised in Pasadena, California. She started her competitive swimming career at age 9 and swam for Rose Bowl Aquatics in her hometown. During summer breaks, Emily would coach younger swimmers on her club to help them improve stroke technique and get exciting about racing! Her favourite stroke is breaststroke, which brought her to compete at the national level, including the USA Olympic Trials in 2008 and 2012.
As an undergraduate student, Emily swam on varsity for the University of California, San Diego where she majored in Biology. Throughout university, she competed at the Division II NCAA’s where she took home the national title in the 200 yard breaststroke in 2012. Since then, Emily has taught swimming and coached privately. Emily is currently at PhD student at the University of British Columbia where she studies marine biology. She has been a member of English Bay since 2015 and absolutely loves being part of this team! She is excited to coach this season and can’t wait to meet the Masters 101 participants! |
Jennika Efford (substitute)
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Jennika Efford joins us from the Canadian Dolphins Swim Club where she has recently come on as their Assistant Head Coach. Jennika started competitive swimming while growing up in California. She competed at a national level in high school which afforded her the opportunity to swim for the UBC Thunderbirds as a distance swimmer while completing her degree in Anthropology.
While swimming at UBC Jennika started coaching for VPSC. Once she had finished her own swimming career she continued coming to the pool every day in hopes of inspiring the next generation of swimmers. After working for VPSC for 3 years Jennika moved to Vancouver Island to work with Island Swimming after spending 2 summers working with the summer club in Duncan, BC. After 4 years at Island Swimming as Head Development Coach, assistant to the Senior Group and yoga teacher, Jennika moved to Tyee Aquatic Club where she has been Assistant Head Coach for the past two seasons. Jennika’s coaching philosophy is aimed at developing not just great swimmers, but great people. She loves working with athletes and helping them reach their full potential in and out of the pool. In her time away from the pool deck Jennika enjoys yoga, trying new restaurants, and travelling. |
Carl ruest (substitute)
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Carl has been a regular swimmer with English Bay for many years. You will see him on deck from time to time subbing for the regular coaches. He strives to make sure his workouts are always fun!
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Ignacio alvarez (substitute)
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Ignacio Alvarez was born in Mexico City and moved to Canada in 1987 with his wife, Coach Marianne Alvarez. A distinguished international swimmer, his personal achievements include swimming for Mexico in the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games in backstroke, at both the 100m and 200m distances, and the medley relay. He also participated in numerous international swimming championships in both the junior and senior categories in the 1970’s. In his specialty, the 100m and 200m backstroke, he was a junior and senior Mexican National record holder.
Ignacio brings to EBSC over 35 years of coaching experience including being a national coach for Fin Swimming, during which time he coached a European record swimmer as well as an age group coach for Chena North Shore SC in North Vancouver. He also coached his wife, Marianne, to swim the English Channel. “My passion is teaching swimmers to love competitive swimming" |