Ken Wood (8 October 1929 – 16 June 2018) [1][2] was an Australian swimmer and swimming coach and a three-time Olympic medal winner.
[3] Wood's replaced Laurie Lawrence in Townsville in the early 1970s and notable swimmers coached included Lesleigh Harvey and Michelle Pearson.
[2] Wood served on seven Olympic campaigns: 1988 in Seoul, 1992 in Barcelona, 1996 in Atlanta, 2000 in Sydney and 2004 in Athens, 2008 in Beijing and finally 2012 in London.
He also coached swimmers on Commonwealth Games teams: 1974 in Christchurch, 1982 in Brisbane, 1986 in Edinburgh, 1990 in Auckland, 1994 in Victoria, 1998 in Kuala Lumpur, 2002 in Manchester and 2006 in Melbourne.
After Australia failed to win any individual gold medals in swimming at the 2012 London Olympics, Wood criticised the current swimmers, saying that they were "fat" compared to the Chinese swimmers, and criticised their "embarrassing" fixation on social media and treating the games like a "social gathering".