Know Amanda Dean, Coach Extraordinaire from South Africa to Grenada

Grenada: Coach Amanda “Mandy” Dean is originally from South Africa, where she grew up as a swimmer. At that time, there was apartheid in South Africa, which meant that athletes were banned from participating in competitive sports against the rest of the world.

Amanda tried her hands at Triathlon, Swimming, Cycling, and Running and became the South African champion. Still not being able to compete out of the country, she decided to use her father’s nationality and compete for Germany. She lived and raced in Germany and France for the ensuing five years and again became the German champion in the late 80s.

Mandy decided to go back to South Africa, started swim coaching and launched her own club and created many champion swimmers. She worked steadfastly for five years on a development program teaching black kids to swim.

After coaching for over 20 years, she decided to retire, which took her sailing to the USA with a friend. Incidentally, they eventually sailed to Grenada, where Mandy looked after a friend’s boat for six weeks. Whilst on the island, she was engaged by another swim coach to look after her swim school while she was away in the USA. Seven (7) years later, Mandy is still enjoying working with many talented young Grenadian swimmers and continues the trend of creating champions.

Mandy is the Swim Coach on Team Grenada at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham, and when asked why Grenada? She responded, “I am proud and honoured to represent Grenada at these Commonwealth Games.”

She added that she met one of her old swimmers from South Africa at the pool while in Birmingham; she was the bronze medalist at the Tokyo Olympic Games. They shared a hug and laughed together because when she left South Africa, she promised that she was giving up coaching, and there she was representing Grenada. It’s safe to say that Amanda “Mandy” Dean has dedicated her life to her passion for shaping and moulding the young ones.

We thank Mandy for her years of continued dedicated service to Grenada!