USA Synchro has announced the hiring of Lara Teixeira as its new junior national team assistant coach and high performance manager. Teixeira, a three-time Olympian for Brazil, had been the head coach of New Zealand for the last few years.
New Additions in Barcelona
Joining Xavier Guillén at the CAR Sant Cugat on the Spanish senior national team are Alisa Ozhogina and Mireia Hernandez, according to the latest convocation the federation recently published for the first major training camp of the year. Ozhogina was part of the senior squad from 2017-2018, but only competed for her club C.N. Sincro Sevilla in 2019 while also training in Moscow. Hernandez has been a major contributor of the junior duet and team for the last few years..
On that same convocation is an interesting new name among the coaching staff: Judit Requena. The name may ring a bell for fans as Requena was part of the Spanish 13-15 and junior national team for many years in the late 2000s, and had been coaching at the C.N. Granollers club after retiring as a swimmer. She’s now moving on up and joining the staff for the senior national team.
Fall Reads
Anastasia Ermakova, a four-time Olympic champion for Russia, has released the English translation of her book “Dancing on Water” on Kindle. The original version in paperback has been available for a while now but only in Italian for now (Ermakova has been living and working in Italy for some years now).
Back at Work
Summer holidays are already over for Great Britain‘s duet of Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe. The two headed to a training camp in Sardinia, Italy, at the end of August to prepare for the intense 2020 season ahead as they vie for a spot at the Olympics.
Switzerland‘s duet of Vivienne Koch and Noemi Peschl has finished creating new choreographies with Eleftheria Ftouli, a 2004 Olympian from Greece.
Retirement
Laura Augé, a 2016 Olympian for France in the duet, has announced her retirement, likely a definite one this time around. Augé initially called it quits after the 2017 FINA World Championships, but returned to elite for the 2019 season. She unfortunately injured her back in training right before worlds and could not compete. In her Instagram post, she explains she is also suffering from a wrist injury that could jeopardize her work as a physiotherapist later on. We wish her luck in her next adventures!
Vlogs & Blogs
The Hungarian national team finally posted its vlog from the world championships in Gwangju. Check it out on YouTube!
Claudia Holzner wrote a blog post about her latest experience at the Pan American Games, where she helped qualify Canada to the 2020 Olympics in duet and team.
In Case You Missed It
Atsushi Abe, two-time world bronze medalist in the mixed duet for Japan, has announced his retirement from elite. Abe was hired to perform in the ‘O’ show for the Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas.
