[ad_1]
To be an Olympic artistic swimmer requires the grace of a ballerina, the flexibility of a gymnast, the lung capacity of a deep-sea diver, and a big packet of gelatin dissolved in water and applied to your head as a varnish.
“If your hair starts falling out or your headpiece starts falling off, it can be very stressful,” Canadian artistic swimmer Claire Scheffel said this week, explaining the critical role that setting gelatin plays in athletes’ elaborate swim hair and makeup. “We really need to keep everything in its place.”
Artistic swimming is one of the most flamboyant and bizarre Olympic sports, a unique blend of ballet, swimming and gymnastics performed to dramatic music and performed with Cirque du Soleil-style theatrics by athletes in glittering swimsuits and extreme facial expressions. It was included in the Olympics in 1984 under its original name, synchronized swimming.
While it’s a delightful spectacle, it has to constantly prove, at least to the public, that it’s really a sport. (The nadir in their quest for respect was probably the same year when Martin Short and Harry Shearer played a pair of really bad synchronized swimmers on Saturday Night Live, one of whom couldn’t swim. Show anyone in the sports world a sketch; they’ll never speak to you again).
If Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did, but “backwards and in heels,” then artistic swimmers must do what gymnasts and acrobats do, but face down, holding their breath for up to two minutes at a time, often in sync not only with the music but with her teammates. One small mistake could ruin everything. When their heads are underwater, swimmers stay afloat by paddling with their arms; when their heads are in the air, they stay standing with a stomping motion called the egg shake. They are not allowed to touch the bottom of the pool.
In 2017, in an effort to broaden its appeal and add more athleticism to the program, the sport was renamed artistic swimming, a stricter judging system was implemented, a difficulty index was incorporated, and a third discipline – acrobatics – was introduced alongside the familiar technical and free events.
The sport is much more difficult than it once was, in part because of its increasingly complex acrobatic moves. Swimmers form a platform or base with their bodies and lift a teammate, known as a “flyer,” above the water, at which point the flyer might assume a position such as a standing split before leaping into the air and twisting, twisting, etc. before returning to the water. (Think cheerleader weightlifting, but in a pool.)
These are the first Olympics to allow men to compete in the sport. Each team is allowed to have a maximum of two male swimmers. However, while a generation of men is rising in stature and may be ready to compete in the 2028 Games, few have experience of team competition. The result is that there are no players on any of the teams in Paris.
(Top American men’s competitor and veteran artistic swimmer Bill May, 45, nearly made the Olympics but was left off the team at the last minute. In recognition of his prominence in the sport, May was introduced to a frenzied crowd Tuesday with three taps on the side of the pool with his cane during the opening ceremony).
The daily grind is hard enough. But then there’s the fact that Mexico’s Nuria Diosdado spent a full two hours getting ready before she even entered the water for her technical event on Monday. That included coating her hair in gel and securing it in place with elaborate hair accessories; applying waterproof makeup that was dramatic enough for the judges halfway across the pool to see; and donning a glittering swimsuit that made her look like an aquatic captain.
“It’s not enough to perform well, your face, makeup and body have to look perfect,” Diosdado said after Mexico’s routine to “Don’t Stop Me Now,” a joyous tribute to Freddie Mercury by Queen. “And you have to look happy all the time, even when people are kicking you underwater. We may be smiling, but we’re actually performing.”
Drama and impression are part of scoring, but you need to continually radiate smiling joy even when your teammates make a critical mistake, or you swallow water, get out of sync, or get punched in the stomach, and that is a challenging element of the sport.
“It’s a weird dynamic, but, you know, we’ve been doing this our whole lives,” said Anita Alvarez, a member of the U.S. team.
Consider the difference in behavior between a marathon runner and an artistic swimmer.
“You see marathon runners at the end of a race, and they’re covered in urine and vomit, and they can barely make it across the finish line,” Alvarez said. “But we have to make it look easy. Of course, it’s not.”
Marathon runners are given foil blankets after their races and allowed to lie on the floor, groaning and clutching their thigh muscles, while female artistic swimmers must swim gracefully to the poolside, joining their teammates in the breaststroke as they do it. Ladies in the club try not to get their hair wet. Once at the poolside, they must maintain a cheerful expression and show no signs of fatigue or pain while awaiting their results, no matter how bad they are.
Each team performs three routines at the Olympics: technical, free and acrobatic, each with its own theme and music. (The Americans took silver in the team final behind China on Wednesday night; the pairs competition, with two athletes from each country, begins on Friday.) Themes can represent narratives, as in the routine for Spain’s world championship win in 2009, which was set to the Led Zeppelin song “Stairway to Heaven”; if you looked closely, you could see a buzz in the hedges. They can also be more vague and broad, like Japan’s free routine on Tuesday (theme: chess).
Not surprisingly, water came up as a frequent theme. The announcer explained that Australia’s freestyle event on Tuesday was “Avatar,” designed to show swimmers “becoming one with the water.” The United States chose “Soy Agua,” which has a high-concept soundtrack, narration by Aquaman himself, Jason Momoa, and routines that evoke water activities, such as melting, rippling, dripping, gurgling, and, of course, splashing.
The theme of the Canadian team’s technical routine is “Wizards of the Forest”.
“We’re really trying to capture the atmosphere of the forest, and the power that’s there,” Scheffel said. “We’re trying to draw energy from the sun, the moon, and the solar system.”
The swimmers’ swimsuits are adorned with feathers. “I think they represent not one specific bird, but birds in general,” Scheffel said. “The feathers really capture the vibe of the forest.”
The sport’s main characteristics—the difficulty of the moves and the emphasis on appearance and performance—are in constant tension with each other.
“I think it will just be a great addition to the sport,” said Carolyn Rayna Buckle of Australia, whose team performed a jungle-themed routine set to Hans Zimmer’s song “Volcano” from the 2008 film “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.” “Not only is it a very difficult sport, but I get to perform and show it. People love to watch synchronized swimming.”
After the competition, athletes have to take care of tired bodies and hard hair covered with a thick layer of elastic gelatin. If you want to see how you can pull it off, Daniella Ramirez from the United States was kind enough to post a series of videos on TikTok showing the less glamorous side of her sport.
Nearly four million people have watched Tuesday’s show, which showed Ramirez carefully removing a loose piece of gelatin from his head – something he calls an “Olympic ball.”
[ad_2]
Source link
