This fall, three-time Spanish Olympian Andrea Fuentes is returning to her home country to serve as head coach of Spain’s artistic swimming senior national team following her six years with the U.S. team.
Her husband, two-time artistic gymnastics Olympian Victor Cano, will serve as the Spanish team’s acrobatics coach, along with coaching in the gymnastics section of CAR Sant Cugat, a high-performance center near Barcelona.
Fuentes’ career as an athlete includes four Olympic medals, 16 world medals, as well as multiple European titles from her 14 years as a member of the Spanish national team.
During her time as head coach for the U.S., she and Cano— who was the team’s acrobatics coach— led the U.S. to multiple podium finishes at the last two World Championships, their first Olympic qualification for the team event in 16 years, and their first Olympic artistic swimming medal in two decades.
As this accomplished duo prepares for their transition from the United States to Spain, we spoke with them about their decision and some of their goals for the future.
Inside Synchro: How did you begin thinking about returning to Spain?
Andrea Fuentes: It was a dream to make come true to go to the U.S., the experience. But I knew that once the mission [of taking the U.S. team to the Olympics] had been accomplished, I would come back to Spain. The goal was more for LA 2028, but we kind of did it faster, probably because of the change in the scoring system and the rules. But it went even better than the expectations that we had.
The U.S. was personally in my heart because it’s the team who made me fall in love with [artistic swimming] when I was young. But of course, we are Spanish, we also love our country. It has always been in our minds that we would not stay in the U.S. forever.
Victor Cano: Andrea was 100% focused on her job, and I was kind of a support system around the whole thing to make it work. But at some point, I felt like I needed to have my own project.
As luck would have it, someone called me without knowing about this feeling in my head, and offered me a very nice job at the high performance center for gymnastics in Spain. I said to him, “I cannot do it now, because I have something here.”
And then it all happened. All of a sudden, we had this great result at the Olympics, and I thought, “Maybe this is the time to make the change.” And then the Spanish federation, again they asked us [to come]. I was like, “Maybe now, we can talk about that.”
AF: Right now the family needs it — we could wait four years more until LA 2028, but sometimes you have to choose to have everything in balance. And for us, family is very important, but there was a point where it was not balanced, family with work. Coming back to Spain will balance this, these foundations.
IS: What are some of your plans and/or goals for the Spanish team? What are your visions for the future?
AF: I think that [Spain] called us to come not because of results, because they have good results. They called us because there is a need in Spain of having excitement for the sport and for the national team. I think there’s something beyond the results that, right now, they want to improve, and that is the reason we are coming.
Some of my missions are to bring back the unity [between] the clubs and the national team, and then also to create an excitement for artistic swimming.
With the national team, I want to make changes in an innovative or creative way to how they do their choreographies. The goal, the project, from a far away perspective, is to bring back the excitement. But also, we want to create the best team in the world— and we want to make sure that this also excites other countries.
I think together [Victor and I] make a very good team. Victor is amazing at acrobatics, but also at the long-term vision. He gives me a lot of perspective, and this is very important because I’m more into the here and now. But mostly, I think one of our signatures is to be game-changers and to make the sport evolve in a good direction.
VC: We knew from our first day [of coaching] our principle: we’re gonna treat people good all the time, no matter what happens, no matter if there’s a problem. There’s a way to show that love can be as powerful as fear.
Maybe sometimes it’s a little bit longer, the road, but it can bring you to better places than this kind of fear figure in training, like what I had when I was a gymnast 20 years ago. Then, your coach was someone telling you what not to do all the time, and what you were doing wrong all the time, sometimes in a harsh way.
We don’t want to be part of that. We want to show that you can have results, and medals— Olympic medals— on the basis of love and respect.
AF: It’s also an adaptation, even in your own country. We learned to be coaches in the U.S., which is a very different culture from Spain. I’ve never been a coach in Spain, so we will also need time to adapt, to get to know the team and how to unleash their potential.
IS: What is something unique or special about the U.S. team that you will miss?
AF: For me, [leaving] was a very hard decision because I really have the U.S. team inside my soul. We’ve been together building all of this, and we’ve built strong relationships.
When I think about it, it’s sad. But I also know that we will make big changes for the Spanish team. I think every athlete deserves to have the experience of not only achieving your dreams in the form of results, but also to have lifelong experiences that will never fade. Our goal as coaches is not only to have good results; it’s to change lives.
VC: I’m gonna miss the feeling [from] the U.S. athletes [in general]— they believe that they can do anything. They believe that they deserve to go and grab the medals, and they are not scared of being good. This is something that I would love to bring back to Spain: to really feel that you’re worth it.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.