"Synchro" drabbles by Neville Hunt

Grandfather’s pride

Synchro #12

Well... it was all over for the Combo Cup 2019. Little F’s team did well... 15/23 and way younger than average. Getting to the finals itself was a tremendous achievement.

What might’ve been a paedo’s paradise, was more of a sweatroom sacrifice. Woe betide any weirdo trying anything with any of those attitudinally advanced aquabats! A headbut in the walnuts with a carbon-fibre-gelled topknot would stop their shenanigans for good.

One moment exchanging raspberries with a nine year old, later on I watched that same young girl morph into a most impressive synchrostar.

Amazing! Well done Little F!

Conquerors

Synchro #11

We were told that in Little F’s category, Salford were the team to beat. The previous year’s winners.You couldn’t miss them, dressed as they were in dayglo peach. They were good, but with everything to play for, fingers were crossed for Little F’s team, although mine were so sweaty they kept slipping uncrossed.

In the end though, it seemed that it was Salford that had slipped this year. Reading Royals were awesome and conquered all. Without a word of a lie, I had myself declared them the best I’d seen, even before the results came.

Sorry Little F... next year?

Pride

Synchro #10

One or two teams seemed to be not so much strutting their stuff but mincing like Monty Python’s gay army platoon. It seemed appropriate that while elsewhere in London the ‘Pride’ marchers were strutting their stuff, there was an audience in the Aquatic Centre equally proud, but desperate to be out, even if they would have to go back in again shortly afterwards for more!

With synchronised swimming so heavily biased towards girls, I’ve heard that in order to encourage more boys into the sport, they might rebrand it Ninja Swimming! My proud grandson would expect it to involve swords!

Well-turned legs

Synchro #9

Strutting’s one thing, but the main action is in the water. The aquabatics in the water were all very impressive throughout, enough to give mermaids a run for their money! I couldn’t do it to save my life, but I’m no yardstick!

If you like a well-turned leg... turning, then this was the place for you! Routines finished, lines of swimming lovelies glide to the steps to exit the pool, then strike a final pose and more applause. Job done!

One minute later another team strut up for their starting pose. And so it goes, and goes, and goes.

Beach bums

Synchro #8

As teams strutted their stuff, even their attitude had attitude! Strutting, bum-swinging and posing had become natural to most girls. I say girls... but there were a couple of oh-so-brave boys syncing with all the girls. A young man’s dream you might think. No way!... more like a nightmare!

For these lads to fit in, a fine line had to be drawn between strutting, swaggering and being normal. Normal, overlaid with micro-swagger won the day.

As for the larger girls, the swimsuit constraints plus strutting produced something from Copacabana Beach rather than Stratford! Look away dads!

Tight squeeze

Synchro #7

All the teams did warm ups. ‘That’s daft,’ I thought, ‘who needs a warm up in this flipping place!’ With each team having its own special branding.... designer swimsuits for easy recognition by their supporters, it should have been really easy to distinguish between them. Maybe it was... maybe I’m too old, but if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all... or so I thought!

Not all girls are the same size, but in some cases it seemed like the swimsuits were. The result was the odd girl of, let’s say, more generous proportions, stood out... or rather squeezed out.

What transpired

Synchro #6

I’ve been in saunas at 100 degrees, been in the steamiest of steam rooms, been melting in an Indonesian monsoon, but I have never lost so much weight, unintentionally, in such a short time through transpiration. I felt like a leaf - a very wet leaf.

Down below was the pool.... so, so inviting. In a rare opportunity to go to the blessed outside and see Little F practising with her team, I asked her how she coped with the heat and humidity. She told me it was cold, poolside and that the water was ‘fffreezing cold’.

‘Oh pleeeease!’ I thought.

Latecomers

Synchro #5

With participants ranging from 9 to 18, it made sense that the younger ones went first as the event wouldn’t finish until 9pm. You’d think, wouldn’t you? But of course that wasn’t what happened at all. Little F’s team were second to last... just before 9pm.

I can imagine the strategy. ‘Schedule the young ones’ slots right at the very end so the poor old grandparents don’t try to sneak out early, claiming to have been overcome by the heat and humidity.’

Stay on we did, watching the legs of seemingly identical girls from places we’d never even heard of.

Clonk

Synchro #4

Little F is the smallest in a team of small girls. She’s 9. Ordinarily she would be recognisable... with her long fair hair framing her pretty little face. Not today. Today that lovely long flowing hair was tied up tight, pulled back into a tight bun and set in place with a gel that was rock-hard. Tap it with your finger and it went ‘clonk!’

Therefore it was kind of difficult to spot her among thousands of others who looked just like her, but for her size. Spotting her team’s matching bathing suit design narrowed it down to 10.

Atmosfear

Synchro #3

Way above the pool on the supporters’ seats we sat for four hours. The atmosphere might well have been fun, but it was also extremely hot and more humid than a thousand dehumidifiers in reverse. Scary! They say you should put yourself out for your kids and grandkids, but we weren’t so much putting ourselves out as oozing out.

Every half-hour or so we took ourselves outside the Aquatic Centre into the 20 degree ‘fridge’. Pheeeeew! Relief! Relief though that was very short-lived. Inside again we all sat on towels, lest we welded our bums to the seats.

Strutteroo

Synchro #2

Before the competitions began, the teams strutted their stuff, like emigrés from the Ministry of Funny Walks. Hundreds of them, doing dry land routines first, in case we missed them in the water, where you don’t see much of them except legs, bums and the occasional set of heads.

Watching on were thousands of proud parents, bored siblings and, you’ve guessed, ultra-proud gramps, including us. The supporters seemed to be grouped in teams, judging by their dress. Ours were bright yellow, the brightest, most visible of supporters, but not the noisiest, who I imagine had come from up North.

Sync or Swim

Synchro #1

We were meeting up for the Synchro Combo Cup. For the unsynchronised among you that’s effectively the national championships for synchronised swimming. It’s held annually with stacks of teams from across the country. But the teams had needed to qualify first to be there in the swim at the Olympic Aquatic Centre in east London.

Qualification for the event didn’t just seem to be a question of ability and synchronicity in the water, but strutability and poseability too. Strutting, posing and syncing, and sometimes sinking while syncing was one little 9yr old girl. It was her we came to see.