| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Born | 24 November 1956 Ngāruawāhia | |||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Rowing | |||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Alan Cotter (born 24 November 1956) is a retired New Zealand rowing coxswain. He was the High Performance Director for Rowing New Zealand from 2008 to 2018.
Cotter was born in 1956 in Ngāruawāhia.[1][2] He won medals with the men's eight at the 1978 (bronze) and 1979 World Rowing Championships (silver).[2] He was selected as cox for the men's eight to compete at the 1980 Moscow Olympics but did not compete due to the Olympics boycott.[3]
Cotter later worked as a rowing coach. This included coaching the men's coxed four who won silver at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.[3] In December 2008, he succeeded Andrew Matheson as High Performance Director for Rowing New Zealand; Matheson had not returned to New Zealand from the 2008 Summer Olympics after receiving an offer from Rowing Australia.[4] He faced funding pressure from High Performance Sport New Zealand after missing the target of five rowing medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where only three medals were won.[5] He resigned from Rowing New Zealand in August 2018 over allegations of bullying.[6]