History of Synchronized Swimming
Synchronized swimming was known as water ballet founded in the year 1907 by an Australian woman named Annette Kellerman. She was the first person to bring awareness regarding this hard-working entertainment. She popularized the sport by performing as an underwater ballerina in a glass tank in the NY Hippodrome.
Canada and Germany were the first places to legitimize this ‘sport’. In the United States, one of the first places to welcome this new and creative water sport as a club was the University of Chicago and in 1939 the first US Synchronized swimming competition took place between to colleges in Chicago.
In the late 19th century synchro was a female only sport in the US with men not allowed to participate until 1941, however, men still had to compete separately and this led to the decline of male participants. This changed in 1978 where men could compete once again with women.
1984 was a big year for the sport as the name synchronized swimming was adopted. The sport was represented in its first Olympics in the summer games of 1984! From 1984-1992, then Summer games featured solo and duet competitions but in 1996, both were dropped in favor of the team competition. Yhe United States of America qualified for its first Olympics in the year 1996. The basics of the sport were complete during this time period in comparison to today. For example, a team routine consisted of 16 girls synchronizing their free-style down the pool and kicking in a circle. Today, a team routine in 2020 is made up of 8 girls going upside down in water for 20 seconds at a time, moving their legs in the air synchronized, and then leading into a lift where the flyer does a skillful leap off of her teammates sometimes being thrown 10 feet into the air.
Recently, in 2017, there was another name change to Artistic Swimming because the sport not only demands advanced water skills, precise timing, flexibility and great strength but also grace and artistry are necessary. The goal is to make the judges “feel” something as they watch and score each routine. The US changed the name to Artistic Swimming in 2020.
To this day, many people expect Artistic Swimming to be similar to water ballet (kicking in a circle with flower caps on), but it is so much more than that! Both land and water skills are required to be mastered in order to swim the challenging routines of Artistic Swimming. This means countless hours of hard work both in and out of the pool. Currently, Artistic Swimming is the most challenging sport for athletes competing in the Olympic Games. Boom! Now that says something!
