New: Jenna Randall

Welcome to Jenna’s new blog at thetalkofsport.com. Jenna is Great Britain’s leading synchronised swimmer and is set to compete in the London 2012 Olympics. Here she provides an introduction to the art of ‘synchro’:

Ever since I became a synchronised swimmer I’ve always wanted to improve the profile of the sport so people can see that it’s not just about splashing around in the pool. It is actually a sport and we do have to train really hard for it. People watch it on TV and they think that it looks so easy – although that is our aim, to make something difficult look easy and effortless.

I do get annoyed when people say ‘it’s so easy, I could do that.’ But then you get them in a pool and they start drowning they realise it is actually really hard!

Since 1992 we’ve not had a Great British synchro team in the Olympics. So we’ve not had the funding and we’ve not been able to afford the pool time, plus everyone in the team has been spread out around the country. But now we have the 2012 games in London, we’ve had more funding again and we’ve been able to bring everyone together and improve the standard.

When we’re at competitions now we are much better than some of the countries out there, but because we’ve had that reputation of being weak the judges still mark us quite low. It’s pretty frustrating, but we’re beginning to break that now.

When we’re away it’s great because all the coaches from other countries come up to us and say ‘well done’ because they can see our improvement, even in the space of two months. It’s great to get that recognition, but now we need to convince the judges too.

It’s great that we have Biz (Price) as our coach now because she’s worked with so many people, including the Spanish team who are number 2 in the world. She has a great feel for what makes a good routine.

For a country like us who are trying to improve and go higher in the rankings we need to balance it between the difficulty of the routine and being able to execute it really well. If we have a really hard routine but can’t execute it as well as an easier one, then we could get lower marks.

It was a bit of a surprise to pick up the silver medal at the German Open in March. Just before the tournament I was out of the pool for nearly 2 weeks with a virus so I was only left with a week and a half to get fit again in order to compete. We were all just going out to do our best but we had no idea we’d get a medal.

Unfortunately I have a slight back injury at the moment so I’m going to be out of action for a couple of months now. But it’s a great opportunity for Olivia (Allison) and Asha, my little sister who is reserve for the duet, to step up and show everyone what they’ve got.

Jenna Randall

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