Girls in frilly costumes doing a bunch of side dives: the stereotypical idea of synchronized swimming.  It’s not just some swimming-dance; it takes real skill. The girls must be in sync with each other. They have to count the beats of the music to the steps that they have to do.

The competitors  have several events that they can do: team (consisting of eight team members), combo (nine to ten team members), duets and solos. There are three Walnut Hills High School girls that are part of the Cincinnati Synchrogators at the YMCA. There are two main competitions, Nationals and Junior Olympics. This past season they went to both Nationals and Junior Olympics. The team qualified for both and had an opportunity to experience the competitive atmosphere at both of the events. The team got 1st place in nationals.

Nationals is much more competitive with the amount of teams that come to this event. In order to qualify, the teams must go through a process of several meets. The swimmers must be in the top three events of each zone, either north, west, east, or south in order to make it to nationals.

Paisley Mccudden, ‘19, Ana Ortega, ‘20 and Keely Connor, ‘18 are on this team. They all have spent many hours perfecting each move and improving their skills.

Ortega has been on this synchro team for seven years. Ortega competed in combo and team.She started taking swimming lessons at the YMCA and “saw some girls doing [synchronized  swimming] and I thought it was really interesting.” Nationals took place in New York; which was the first time she ever competed there. Ortega said it was and an “interesting change of scenery.” There was a lot of people and top level judges observing them. The team had to follow strict rules and were up against the best teams in the nation. Ortega competed in combo and team.

McCudden has done synchro for eight years. “When I was younger I had tried a lot of different sports,” Paisley said. She was into dance, gymnastics, and swimming. Her mother found a flyer about synchro that was a combination of all these sports that she enjoyed. She went to a show and “really liked it.” Her mother talked to the coach and she began her career  as a synchro swimmer. She met her closest friends on the team. It takes all the girls to be a team and to be unified. Each person wants to do well because of the judges but also because there are national coaches “who recognize you and your hard work and the team.”

Connor has been a part of this team for ten years. She practices about 14 hours a week. She said that it was very “stressful” at nationals. For each girl there are certain areas that they need to work on. For Connor, she “struggles a lot with extension [of the legs] and holding positions.” In order for it to be a unified team they must get along and so they do a lot of team bonding. “It’s fun to hang out with your teams in the hotels rooms and carpooling over there [in a big van],” Conner said.

Each of these girls have worked hard to be where they are and they are able to show judges what they’ve worked on over the season. The team hopes to continue to improve and to make it to this level of competition again.