Training 4 days a week, 2.5 hours a day is what two local athletes hope it will take to secure a spot at the 2014 Alberta Winter Games for their synchronized swimming duet.
11 year old Chestermere residents, Gracyn Steeves & Kamilla Olmedo have been best friends since they were three years old and together became members of the Calgary Aquabelles, a synchronized swim team, over 3 years ago.
“We always wanted to do a duet together ever since we started competitive swimming with the Aquabelles,” says an excited Steeves, a grade 6 student at Chestermere Lake Middle School.
The pair will head to Edmonton this weekend to compete in the 2014 AB Winter Games Trials at NAIT Pool. Successful athletes of the trials will advance to the Alberta Winter Games held in Canmore in early 2014.
Olmedo, the grade six student at Our Lady of Wisdom is excited about the opportunity that they have been preparing for since October, “The music to our routine is to Splish Splash, Limbo and Wipeout with all three songs cut together, it’s so much fun,” beams the young athlete.
Synchronized swimming is a hybrid form of swimming, dance and gymnastics, consisting of swimmers performing a synchronized routine of elaborate moves in the water, accompanied by music.
Only one duet team from each Zone across Alberta can go onto compete at The Alberta Winter Games, and there are over 20 teams entered. The two friends will go and do their best representing Zone three, hopefully earning a spot at the upcoming Provincial Games.
