Olympic gold medalist and Georgia Tech assistant swimming and diving coach
Melanie Margalis Fink is an Olympic gold medalist and assistant swimming and diving coach at Georgia Tech. She returned to the Yellow Jackets' coaching staff in May 2025 after two seasons as an assistant coach at SMU and an earlier Georgia Tech appointment during the 2022–23 season.
Margalis Fink represented the United States at the 2016 Rio Olympics, winning gold with the women's 4x200-meter freestyle relay and placing fourth in the 200-meter individual medley. Her international career also included long-course world championship gold medals in 2017 and 2019, short-course world championship gold in 2018, and bronze in the 400-meter individual medley at the 2021 short-course championships.
At the University of Georgia, Margalis Fink earned 17 All-America honors and contributed to the Bulldogs' 2013 and 2014 NCAA team championships. She graduated in 2014 with a bachelor's degree in family and consumer sciences with a focus on fashion merchandising.
Watch a race from under the water and the wall work tells you more than the stroke count does. A swimmer who looks average on top can still win off a clean flip turn and a strong streamline — here's how to build both.
Aug 13, 2026
New butterfly swimmers watch elite shoulders explode out of the water and decide the stroke is about strength. It's really a timing problem wearing a strength costume — and swimmers who figure that out early swim it far more comfortably.
Aug 13, 2026
Breaststroke is a strange mix of unnatural movement, technical skill, and underwater pullouts — and any of the three can decide a race. Both halves of the stroke, the timing that connects them, and the rules that keep it legal.
Aug 13, 2026
Nobody swims backstroke by accident — most kids get assigned to it, then either quit on it or turn it into their best event. The difference is a handful of technical pieces that make the stroke feel controlled instead of chaotic.
Aug 13, 2026
If the 200 freestyle time barely moves meet after meet, the reason usually isn't fitness. Four technical habits — body position, catch, kick, and breathing — quietly tax every stroke, and each one is fixable at the next practice.
Aug 13, 2026