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By Rik Rösken Most readers who visit this site regualary would be familiar with the famous dive of Giorgos Haggi Statti in 1913, and often this feature of the Greek spongediver is been seen as the first demonstration of extreme breath-hold diving. Much less aknowledged is the performance of the Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman. She performed a "water ballet" in a tank in 1907 in New York. While there is much less known of her performance compared with that of Haggi Statti, more is known about Katherine Curtis, who actively started with underwater swimming stunts in 1915 at the university of Wisconsin. More than just inventing a new aquatic sport, she also managed to have the sport added to the university's physical education program for woman. The sport really started 1923 when she founded a water ballet club in 1923 and six swimmers attracted attention as the "Modern Mermaids" at the 1934 Century of Progress World's fair in Chigago. Five years later, the first competition was been held, over 20 years before underwater hockey and rugby arived and 50 years before competitive freediving became a feature in the world. For the modern variant of synchronized swimming a good feeling for music, agility, grace and technique is needed. Overall swimming is done in large groups, dual, or solo where you need to swim with the music. Competitions exists in two or three parts, and exists of compulsory figures, announced figures and freestyle. Not just the performance itself is important, also the clothing and make-up plays an important role for the jury. There are more synchronized swimmers as competitive freedivers, and sport have been aknowledged by various organisations, and even has a olympic status. Perhaps there is a femine side to competitive freediving afterall... Read also: Links:
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