Friday 10 June 2011

Synchronised Swimming - History

Synchronised Swimming was known as water ballet at the turn of the 20th century. The first recorded competition was in 1891 in Berlin, Germany. Many swim clubs were formed around that time, and the sport simultaneously developed within several countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the USA. As well as existing as a sport, it often constituted a popular addition to Music Hall evenings, in the larger variety theatres of London or Glasgow which were equipped with huge on-stage water tanks for the purpose.


While exclusively a sport performed by men in its first days, it quickly became a women's sport because the nature of the physical movements are more suitable to the female physique (i.e. center of gravity). In 1907, Australian Annette Kellerman popularised the sport when she performed in a glass tank as an underwater ballerina in the New York Hippodrome. After experimenting with various different diving actions and stunts in the water, Katherine Curtis started one of the first water ballet clubs at the University of Chicago, where the team began executing strokes, "tricks," and floating formations. On May 27, 1939, the first U.S. synchronized swimming competition took place at Wright Junior College between Wright and the Chicago Teachers' College.


In 1924, the first competition in North America was in Montreal, with Peg Seller as the first champion. Other important pioneers for the sport are Beulah Gundling, Käthe Jacobi, Marion Kane Elston, Dawn Bean, Billie MacKellar, Teresa Anderson and Gail Johnson. Many of the competitions in those days were still done in lakes and rivers.

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