Added: 12/26/2005 |
Swim Penalties in Modern Synchronized Swimming Can Mean the Difference Between a Win or a LossThe popularity of synchronized swimming has grown quite large. Since 1984 this sport has been included in Olympic competition. It is a very beautiful kind of sport that attracts a huge audience. But the beginning of synchronized swimming competition was nothing like what we see today. It may sound strange for most people but in the beginning only men teams performed in that sport. Only much later did female teams start to perform in synchronized swimming competitions. Presently only women take part in synchronized swimming competitions. Which is a big relief, because I don't really enjoy seeing a bunch of men swim around underwater looking like they're searching for water lilies.
Anyway, the name of the sport has also evolved over the years. Looking through the history of synchronized swimming you can see such names as ornamental, figure and even scientific swimming.
Modern performances can be solo, duet and team. But only duet and team programs are included into Olympic program. However, in most of the countries, solo synchronized swimming competitions are rare.
There is a major different between duet and team programs. Team program includes only free routine while duet program consists of both technical and free routines. Technical routine is made of certain set of movements and these movements are described by a special committee every four years. The duet cannot change these movements of their sequence.
The only thing that can be changed by swimmers in the technical routine is music they perform with. Team competitions, on the other hand, contain only free programs that enjoy more freedom in building the routine. Different elements can be used here and teams try to include new element into routine for each competition.
Artistic impression makes synchronized swimming a special sport and it also makes scoring much more difficult. There is a system of points. Two teams of judges are involved in the process - one gives these points for difficulty of the elements and synchronization of the execution and another team judge's choreography of performance. The manner of the execution is also being judged. Lack of execution can result in an acquired element omitted penalty.
There is also a system of swim penalties. These swim penalties are used to reflect mistakes of swimmer. As with the point there are two types of swim penalties - swim penalties for technical aspects of the performance and swim penalties for artistic impression. A required element omitted penalty means some standardized element of the routine was ignored or forgotten. Serious offences penalties might be raising your head out of the water.
The technical part of the program is pre-defined so there is a special required element omitted penalty. It allows controlling the needed sequence of the elements. Of course, there are also much harder serious offences penalties. For example, it is not allowed to use the bottom of the pool to execute different elements. And it is possible to lose points if one of the swimmers touches the bottom or helps another. Helping one another represents just one of many serious offences penalties.
Such complex judging system makes score making process pretty hard. That is why these days in most of the competitions special computer systems are used to collect all the information on points and swim penalties from judges. This information is processed with different coefficients to get the end result for each team. Special software allows making that very fast so the audience usually sees only the result sum.
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