British synchronised swimmers Jenna Randall and Olivia Allison believe 2012 will be their year, but they’re equally determined to make the most of their Olympic debut in Beijing this summer.
The Olympic qualification tournament took place in Beijing itself in April, and so the Olympic pool is already familiar water for the duo. "They love synchronised swimming in China and are very good at it too,” said Allison of her experience there.
The pair recently improved their standing on the European circuit by finishing in ninth place in the duet free final at the LEN European Synchronised Swimming Championships in March.
Their training workload has been greatly increased since the arrival of Canadian Biz Price as Performance Director.
“Swimming full time is really great,” said Randall, “We can now focus on our sport and get to the best that we can be. Biz has taught us new skills to improve us quickly.”
Price, an international herself, was in charge of the Canadian national squad for 17 years.
“They have all the attributes, there is no reason why they can’t reach the top,” she insisted. “It takes a long time to get good. They just have to get some years of experience and training behind them.”
The sport was introduced to the Olympics in 1984 when the British duo Holmyard and Wilson finished fourth. However, Britain has yet to win a medal and the sport still has critics who question its validity on the programme.
“We don’t do synchronised swimming just because of the costumes,” Randall insisted. “For people who don’t know much about it, try running a 400m sprint whilst holding your breath, smiling at the same time and moving your arms around. It involves so many different skills, all the time pinning dance and gymnastic skills together with swimming.”
Randall and Allison have been training together for two years and, despite their youth, have developed a strong partnership:
“At the very beginning it can be quite scary, getting to know a new partner and trying to swim with them. You don’t know how they are going to react to different things, how nervous they are going to get or how they react when there is a lot of stress and pressure put on to them.”
Two big competitions in Melbourne threw into context just how much work Randall and Allison still need to do to challenge for medals in 2012. At the 2006 Commonwealth Games Jenna won a silver medal in the solo event, but that is not an Olympic event. They finished just outside the medals in the duet, but when they returned to the same city a year later for the World Championships they placed 20th.
At 17 Allison is the younger of the two and has moved from her home in St Albans to Hampshire to train. The Aldershot pool is home to the Rushmoor Synchro club and is also part of the Team GB Preparation Camp for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
“It is hard to get pool time in good pools,” she said, “This has got deep water so we can do lifts and other complex moves.”
What the pool doesn’t have is equally important for Randall:
“The chlorine has been reduced so it is not so itchy on the skin anymore. We don’t turn up with massive red faces from chlorine burn.”
