Jan Harville, the former US National Rowing Team coach, arrived in South Africa yesterday to coach Rika Geyser, South Africa`s top woman single scull rower.
Harville comes with impressive coaching credentials. She was head coach of Washington University women`s rowing teams from 1988 to 2003 and US National Team coach at various times from 1985 to 1999.
In 1996 she served as the Olympic Team assistant coach. She won the Pacific -10 Coach of the Year title nine times from 1988 to 2002 and was inducted into the National Rowing Hall of Fame in 1991. In 1994 Harville was voted US Rowing Woman of the Year and in 2002 she was named National Coach of the Year (Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association) and also Seattle Post - Intelligencer Sports Star of the Year.
The successes enjoyed by the teams coached by Harville are also impressive. The University of Washington rowing team won numerous National Champion and NCAA titles. At national level, the US women`s team achieved medal success at the World Championships including three gold medals in Finland in 1995.
Harville also personally competed at the highest level in rowing and won one bronze and two silver medals at the World Championships In 1979, 1982 and 1983.
Geyser, who is a CSI Ambassador for arivia.kom, a leading IT services company in South Africa, first met Harville when still a student at Washington University. She notes: "Jan was coaching the university rowing squad at the time and it is a tremendous privilege to have a person with her expertise and experience coaching me."
Geyser reached the finals of the recent World Championships in Japan and trained with members of the American National Rowing squad in Seattle at the end of 2005. She is optimistic that this experience, and personal coaching from Harville, can make her a serious medal contender at the August 2006 World Rowing Championship in England and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Jacques Harmse, executive director of Rowing South Africa (ROWSA), comments that international coaching expertise has in the past, and will in future, contribute to the success of South African sporting codes.
"A case in point is that the SA national coach of our own Olympic Bronze medal rowing pair (Athens 2004) is of German nationality. Arivia.kom is the primary sponsor of Women`s Rowing in South Africa and is once again showing its commitment and support to the development of our female athletes."
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Arivia.kom is a leading South African IT company operating throughout Africa, with a proven ability to implement customised, integrated IT solutions and provide services at whichever global location clients may specify. Its end-to-end services and solutions generate significant business advantages for its clients. It has a thorough understanding of the market sectors on which it focuses and an impressive track record as proof of its capabilities. http://www.arivia.co.za
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