SYNCHRO DUET RESULT IS AHEAD OF EXPECTATIONS
Britain's young synchronised swimmers have exceeded expectations
at their first World Championships in nearly a decade.
Jenna Randall and Olivia Allison, at their first senior event,
finished joint 20th with Austria in the Duet Technical Routine
on the first day of the Melbourne World Championships at the
Rod Laver Arena.
The result gives British Synchro, which is at the beginning
of a development process in time for the London 2012 Olympics,
a starting point on which to build to ensure they're competing
with the very elite of the sport in five years time.
National Performance Director Biz Price, who has been in
charge of the athletes' development since her arrival from
Canada at the beginning of the year, was pleased with this
morning's outcome which went further than she had hoped for
given Britain's lack of world ranking coming into the competition.
"That was a very good performance and showed more consistency
of skills which is what we were after," explained Price.
"We're way ahead of the Australians which is a great
start. It was a good job and we're right on track as the judges
showed today.
"Overall it showed the improvements we've made in just
two-and-a-half months. There are a few more areas we need
to work upon but the first element of the routine was awesome.
"We still need to work towards a more consistent routine
but that's something that we have time to do as we eye the
opportunity of going to the Beijing Olympics and certainly
London 2012."
Judges awarded the British duet an execution score of 42.333
and an overall impression score of 42.500 to give a total
of 84.833. This placed them joint 20th out of a total field
of 36. They were 4.5 points away from a top 12 finish and
a place in the final.
"The girls handled the whole experience very well. From
training at 6am this morning to hanging around the venue until
their routine at 11.30am, they were very professional. They
obviously felt comfortable with the competition itself and
that is what these World Championships are about. They were
impressive," added Price.
For Randall and Allison, who have been living and training
together at their base in Aldershot in readiness for the World
Championships, it was a just reward for all of their hard
work.
"It was a really good first time performance for us,"
said Randall. " We worked our corrections and the marks
are what we had hoped for so we're pleased.
"We were looking at the leading nations this morning.
They are very good but it doesn't come as a shock to us, we
know where we need to be and this morning showed we've taken
big steps towards getting there.
"Biz had set us a target of top 22 but personally I
was hoping for a top 15 spot. It's our first senior World
Championships and to be honest it's a bit of an unknown but
this morning gave us a good starting point on which to build."
Allison was delighted with the duet's performance and feels
the hard work undertaken over the past 10 weeks has given
the girls the ideal foundation on which to build towards Beijing
and beyond.
"We've been training in Canada for a month before a
two week camp here in Australia," said Allison. "We
had a lot of competition simulations within that time so we
knew what we needed to do and it went well this morning.
"We've been living together for three months now and
training almost everyday to get ready for the biggest event
of our careers so far. It's been hard work but it paid off
for us today."
Tomorrow (Sunday 18th) Randall will compete in the Solo Free
Routine Preliminaries.
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