The Queen’s synchronized swimming team brought home two gold medals from their second meet of the season in Toronto last weekend. The team entered three teams, three duets and a novice solo routine in the competition.
In the competitive team category, Queen’s entered the Yellow team, coached by Colleen Daly and the Red team, coached by Jen Robertson.
In a field of 15 teams, they finished first and 10th. The Yellow team, coached by Colleen Daly, took the top spot, and the Red team, coached by Jen Robertson, finished 10th. Queen’s also entered a novice team, coached by Carly Morin, which finished fourth. Novice swimmers are those who haven’t competed at the provincial level before coming to university. Queen’s fared identically in the duet competition. Out of 17 routines in the competitive category, the duet of Jenilee Keslering and Laura Killey won gold, and Izzy Colmers and Erin Wishart finished 10th.
The novice duet of Madeleine Green and Kirsten Glover finished in fourth place. In the novice solo routine, Chayoon Park finished third. Melissa Dermody, one of the team managers, said the team is
very happy with their results at the competition. “We finally beat McGill,” she said. “We had a really good swim.” Dermody said that, despite the separation of the three teams, there’s still a strong team atmosphere at practice. “All three separate teams practice together during practice times,” she said. “Duets and solo routines practice outside of practice times.” She said some teams also train on their own, working out routines on land to music before getting into the water.
Each team has a coach that choreographs each routine, but team also contribute. For the duets or solos, it’s the swimmers that come up with their own routines. The meet at U of T was a
qualifying event for the final event of the synchronized swimming season, held at Waterloo next weekend. Dermody said that the coaches talk to the judges after the competitions and the team will be focusing on improving specific areas before the next event.
“We have to work on improving our height,” Dermody said, referring to the height of the swimmers’
bodies above the water.
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