About The Sport
About Artistic Swimming
In the 1950s and 60s, this aquatic phenomenon began to evolve into a highly technical and physically demanding competitive sport called synchronized swimming. Canada established itself as a leader in the sport and began to share its expertise with other nations, which aided its development across the globe. In 1954 FINA, the international federation for Aquatic sports, recognized synchro as an official aquatic sport. It made its debut at the inaugural World Aquatic Championships in Belgrade in 1973 and was welcomed in to the Olympic games program in 1984.
Synchro consists of seven events: solo, duet, team (eight swimmers), each of these include free routine and technical routines, and a combo routine ( a combination of team, duet and solo in one routine). The team event replaced the solo and duet events at the 1996 olympic games. At the 2000 Olympic Games, the duet event was returned to the program. The sport is considered a female sport in the eyes of the IOC and males are not permitted to compete in FINA competitions. The competitive rules and manner of judging are similar to such sports as figure skating and gymnastics.
For many years, synchro was Canada’s most successful amateur sport. With the exception of 1998, our athletes won medals at every world championships between 1973 and 2001 and at every Olympic Games between 1984 and 2000. In recent years the competition has stiffened and the number of countries competing in synchro at a high level as increased significantly. Russia, Spain, Japan and China have begun to dominate the podium spots. Canada fell short of its goal to reach the podium at the 2012 Olympics in London earning a respectable 4th place finish in duet and team. Looking forward to 2016 in Rio- Synchro Canada will continue its efforts to rise back to medal standings.
Adapted from Synchro Canada LTAD: Developing Champions for Life *
Why Enroll
Artistic swimming offers an ideal environment for young girls to learn and grow. It’s a multi-faceted activity and allows participants to develop a variety of physical skills, while also benefiting from many physiological and social aspects of the sport. While the focus of artistic swimming is on the team component through which athletes learn how to be exemplary team-players, the athletes also train and compete individually (compulsory figures, solo), or as a pair (duet), and develop the ability to self-motivate, engage in healthy self-talk, and learn independence.
Artistic swimming provides young girls with fantastic female role models. Your daughter will be coached and mentored by capable, strong, and intelligent women, and have successful, hard-working female athletes to look up to. Artistic swimming helps girls develop a strong sense of self-confidence - the kind of confidence that will lead them to success and to the belief that they can succeed at anything if they work hard enough at it.
Artistic swimming empowers your child and teaches her about self-esteem, self-disciple, healthy body image, teamwork, and time-management. Your child will learn how to set goals and push herself to excel.
While your child will be asked to challenge herself, artistic swimming will not risk her health and safety. It is a sport with a low risk of severe injury.
Most of all, artistic swimming can be lots of fun and having fun is the key to your child pursuing an active and healthy lifestyle and then maintaining that lifestyle throughout her adult life.
