With the craze of Barcelona at the end of May, I decided to push back this edition of Sync Up. So, here are all the latest small news from the last month you may have missed.

Team Announcements

• Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe have been officially announced as Great Britain’s duet that will try to qualify for the 2020 Olympics. This is a bit obvious to us in the synchro community, but it’s great to see the federation make it official to the general public.
• Canada has named the nine athletes that will compete at the Pan American Games this summer. Congratulations to Emily Armstrong, Catherine Barrett, Andrée-Anne Côté, Camille Fiola-Dion, Rebecca Harrower, Claudia Holzner, Audrey Joly, Halle Pratt and Jacqueline Simoneau.
• Similarly, the U.S. announced its “Incredible Eight” team (with, um, nine listed and 11 pictured) for the world championships and the Pan American Games. Congratulations to Anita Alvarez, Paige Areizaga, Nicole Goot, Hannah Heffernan, Daniella Ramirez, Ruby Remati, Abby Remmers, Lindi Schroeder and Emmanuella Tchakmakjian.

International Collaborations

• Ona Carbonell was working with Virginie Dedieu again this season for new choreographies for both technical and free solos. We already saw the new technical solo to the speech of Nelson Mandela at the Spanish Open and at the Super Final. Check out a difficult barracuda hybrid the two came up with.
• Aruba‘s duet of Kyra Hoevertsz and Abigail de Veer stayed in Barcelona after the Spanish Open and collaborated with former Spanish national team member Cristina Salvador on its new choreographies.
• The teams from Guatemala and Chile also stayed in Barcelona after the Spanish Open, and were able to share some training sessions with the Spanish national team at the CAR training center. Gotta love the sportsmanship and sharing of ideas between all these athletes and coaches.
• The duet from Chile also received some technical and choreography help from Olympians Thais Henriquez and Marga Crespi while in Barcelona.

Eurovision

• Israel‘s synchro team made a very cool appearance during the Eurovision Song Contest. Considering this event is viewed by a global television audience of about 200 million people across the world, this was a fantastic exposure for both the team and our sport.

Got Skills?

• Bregje de Brouwer from the Netherlands continued to have fun with her barracudas with this variation of a barracuda split.
• Canada’s Jacqueline Simoneau showed off her combined spin element, both underwater and above the surface. She truly has one of the best ones out there.
• Russian national team member Marina Golyadkina is having fun and fast forwarding her spins.
• Staying in Russia, Varvara Subbotina posted a slow-mo video of a variation of barracuda boost, where she gets up to her armpits, like one does.
• The Brazilians always have tremendous acrobatics, and this double pike is no exception. 10.0 for the form.
• Spain‘s junior team is gearing up for the upcoming European junior championships in Prague next week.

Vlogs & Videos

• A long documentary on Russia‘s legendary coach Tatiana Pokrovskaya was aired on June 8 on Channel 1 in the Tonight show (no subtitles available). It looks back into her coaching career, shares anecdotes and stories from former and current swimmers and coaches, and delves into some of her creative works, including the harrowing and heartbreaking story behind the 2016 Olympic free team routine which was in memory of her granddaughter who died of cancer at the age of 15 around that time. Pokrovksaya admitted to the journalists she went through a deep depression and almost thought of quitting the sport as this tragedy was unbearable to her.
• Bregje and Noortje de Brouwer vlogged about their latest trip to Quebec for the Canada Open.
• Finally, dive alongside the U.S. team through one of their training camps earlier in the year with this nine minutes documentary.

Article by Christina Marmet.