Andrew James Duncan Laing, CNZM, OBE, (20 June 1933 – 13 September 2008), generally known as Duncan Laing, was a New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 swimming

Swimming (sport)

Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

 coach based in Dunedin

Dunedin

Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...

. He coached Olympian Danyon Loader

Danyon Loader

Danyon Loader ONZM is an Olympic champion, former World Record holding swimmer from New Zealand, based in Dunedin...

, winner of two gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and a silver medal at Barcelona

1992 Summer Olympics

The 1992 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event celebrated in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, in 1992. The International Olympic Committee voted in 1986 to separate the Summer and Winter Games, which had been held in the same...

 in 1992, and Philip Rush

Philip Rush

Philip Rush is a firefighter and long distance swimmer who is the current world record holder for the fastest two and three way swim of the English Channel which he completed in 1987 in a time of 28 h 21 mins -Biography:To date...

, current world record holder for the fastest two and three way swim of the English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

. He began teaching at Moana Pool

Moana Pool

Moana Pool is the largest swimming pool in the southern half of New Zealand's South Island. It is located at the corner of Littlebourne Road and Upper Stuart Street close to Otago Boys' High School, on the slopes of Roslyn, overlooking the centre of the city of Dunedin.The largest of Dunedin's four...

 in 1966, and over forty years training in Dunedin included 11 Olympic athletes. In 2003, Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps

Michael Fred Phelps is an American swimmer who has, overall, won 16 Olympic medals—six gold and two bronze at Athens in 2004, and eight gold at Beijing in 2008, becoming the most successful athlete at both of these Olympic Games editions...

visited New Zealand to train under Laing. He had since retired from professional coaching, and received treatment in 2006 for melanoma on his leg and a brain tumour.

He married Betty Burgess in 1951, and they had six children, 4 sons and 2 daughters (1 deceased). Besides coaching he was an Otago rugby selector in the 1980s, and ran the Moana House rehabilitation centre with his wife.

Laing was awarded the OBE in 1993, and made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in June 2006.

He was born in New Plymouth on 20 June 1933, and died in Dunedin on 13 September 2008 at the age of 77.