Here at QX Towers it’s no secret that we have a penchant for all things lycra and all through the London 2012 Olympics last summer we were glued to our TVs.
While huge strides have been made in equality on and off the sports field, women’s boxing was only approved as an Olympic sport for 2012, there are a few remaining sports that are still unequal. One of them is Synchronised Swimming where women have been competing since the 1984 Olympics but men are still not allowed to.
A popular misconception is that Synchro is easy, pretty and therefore just for girls, but as a sport it demands stamina, core strength, swimming ability and breath control – the equivalent of doing a spinning class, dancing, swimming and pilates all at once.
Both USA Synchro and Synchro Canada allow men to compete with women, and most European countries allow men to compete also, and in the past decade more men are becoming involved in the sport and a global biannual competition called the Men’s Cup has been steadily growing. But here in the UK there is only one male synchronised swimming team, Out To Swim Angels, based at the Queen Mother Sports Centre in Victoria.
Out to Swim is the first UK club to accept male synchronised swimmers, and have featured on BBC News, ABC News (http://abcn.ws/14g0Wji), Jo Brand’s Big Splash and in the papers. They are running a four-session course to introduce beginners to the sport where you’ll learn basic techniques from ‘layouts’ to ‘verticals’ and practise swimming to music and in formation, and at the end of the course you’ll perform a team routine.
It’s a fun and social alternative sport, fantastic exercise and is great for core strength, so why not have a go!?
• more details : http://bit.ly/1cuOnsw
