Tremaine used the lane over the past 15 years but when he was ill John Cornfoot coached his squad.
After the death of Punch Tremaine last month, the Dunedin City Council decided to put the lane up for tender. There were four applicants for the space.
The tender evaluation team of councillor Bill Acklin and the DCC general manager operations Tony Avery awarded the tender to the Otago Swim Coaching Academy (Osca) for its surf and triathlon squad.
"Punch's swimmers are now left without a lane and face the prospect of paying $155 per week to have a coach at poolside," Angela Ruske said. She is the mother of promising elite swimmer Aleisha Ruske.
"The DCC has denied a top-quality coach from helping our talented Dunedin swimmers. It now leaves our top swimmers facing the prospect that they may not have a lane to train in."
The criticism by Ruske highlights the problems faced by the Dunedin City Council with the lack of lane space at Moana Pool in the morning.
Avery told the Otago Daily Times that there are 20 lanes of 25m available for swimming at Moana Pool.
The early mornings are the difficult times with the swimming squads and the general public keen to use the limited lane space.
The squads use between 11 and 13 lanes each weekday morning between 6am and 8am.
"The remaining lanes are available to the public," Avery said. "The public swimming lanes are heavily utilised and last week 110 members of the public used the pool. There is not enough space at Moana Pool to meet everyone's needs."
For most of Duncan Laing's time he was the only professional coach who could use Moana Pool. Most major swimming pools in the world only have one or two professional coaches. It is rare to have three.
The current contractual professional swim coaching arrangements at Moana Pool were put in place in 2004.
"It provides for the exclusive use of Moana Pool lane space by two professional swim coaches," Avery said.
Tremaine was allowed to continue using a lane after 2004 because of his long-term use of the pool.
"Punch's recent death brought that arrangement to an end," Avery said.
The competitive tender process was put in place because of Angela Ruske's talks with the council.
"No undertaking was given that the tender process would result in another competitive swimming coach being allowed to coach at the pool," Avery said.
"In the tender evaluation team's view the Osca proposal catered for the needs of a greater number of competitive swimmers."
Avery said both Waves coach Andy Adair and Osca coach Gennadiy Labara hold similar qualifications to Cornfoot and are in the process of applying for the next level of qualification.
Labara has also had extensive coaching experience in Australia and his native Ukraine.
Both Waves coach Andy Adair and Osca coach Gennadiy Labara are prepared to let swimmers from Tremaine's squad join their groups.
"It is not an issue about the availability of space for talented swimmers," Avery said.
"It is an issue about who coaches those swimmers. There are clear options available."
The existing professional contracts end in December this year for Adair and in May next year for Labara.
Dunedin City Council aquatics manager Steve Prescott withdrew from the selection process because he trains with Labara's Osca squad and had a conflict of interest.
