From: matt@unidata.ucar.edu (Matt Hicks)
Subject: Re: synchro swim
Organization: Scientific Computing Division/NCAR Boulder, CO
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 18:39:29 GMT

>>>s.s. is near the top of the list when
>>>considering sports which require a great amount of physical fitness
>>>AND skill.
>>
>>Anyone can see that the synchronized swimmers are terrifically fit and
>>performing amazing physical feats.
>>
>>It would just be a lot easier to take s.s. seriously if they got rid of
>>the shellacked hair, 3-inch-thick waterproof make-up, plastic smiles,
>>and hometown-4th-of-July-parade costumes.

>AGREED! And don't forget the "Ms Robot" moves! I really admire the
>swimmer's fitness and split-second timing, but all those things just
>mentioned make me want to barf, so I don't watch the sport anymore.

>What ss needs is it's own version of Torvill & Dean. Is it against 
>the rules to look serious? To use fluid, balletic movements? To
                                          ^^^^^^^^
>use really interesting, challenging music? I guess so. 

Alot of people have been using the "Well, I bet you couldn't do it
and I know I certainly can't" argument to validate synchronized 
swimming. As the first post above points out, you "can _see_ that the
synch swimmers are terrifically fit." Fair enough, but fitness (esp. the
appearance of fitness) is relative. The same can be said of "amazing
physical feats." I know many "terrifically fit" people, and many of them
can do things that I can't begin to do, even though I am myself quite fit.
This does not make my friends olympic athletes. They're not even close.
The level of fitness that is required in most sports to compete at a 
world class level is something that most of us can never hope to obtain
or perhaps even understand. Let's compare the synch swimmers to other
olympic athletes (not to our own average selves) and see how they stack
up. I doubt very much that if you gave Kim Zmeskal six months in a pool
that she would find synch swimming very demanding physically. Nor would
Janet Evans or Summer Sanders, although they would require some time
to learn the moves. The hardest part seems to be moving together and in
time with the music. But if that raises synch swimming to the level of
an olympic sport, then "Puttin' on the Hits" should become a qualifying
event for olympic lip-synching.

Check out the skate rats the next time you're near a mall. Some of these
kids perform amazing feats of coordination and acrobatics and they look
quite fit (although many probably smoke, or worse.) But they are not
olympic athletes or even world class skate boarders. Could you or I do 
what they do? Maybe, given the time and desire, but quite possibly not.
So we're amazed at their skill and we might respect what they can do,
but we don't put them on the pedestal that some of you are trying to 
keep our olympic nymphs on.

So, in closing, I'd just like to ask: Is "balletic" a word? 
--
_________________________________________________  /\_/\  _________________
Matthew  B.  Hicks     | Unidata Program Center | ((ovo))  The spotted owl:
matt@unidata.ucar.edu  | UCAR, PO Box 3000      | ():::()  the other "other
303/497-8676	       | Boulder, CO 80307-3000 |   VVV    white meat."   
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