ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 23, 1996 TAG: 9607230031
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DETROIT
SOURCE: MARK EMMONS KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
All right, tough guy. (Or tough gal.) So you think synchronized swimming is a joke? You believe that it's some alternative form of art expression masquerading as a real sport?
Welcome to the club. Please, take a number. You're at the end of a long line. Feel free to pass the time poking fun at these wannabe mermaids. Go ahead, laugh about how this aquatic activity is just one step beyond a beauty pageant swimsuit competition.
Synchronized swimming washes back into the public spotlight this month in its quadrennial role as the unofficial punch line of the Olympic movement. First, though, the good folks who bring you synchro - and that includes an adult synchro club in the Detroit area - have a small request:
Stop snickering for a moment and jump into the nearest pool.
Good, now flip upside down, raise yourself out of the water up to your hips and straighten your legs. Hey, no touching the bottom. That's cheating. OK, hold that position for, say, 30 seconds. And when you come up for a breath, have a glowing smile on your face. Don't gulp for air. Then skim across the pool, without doing the dog paddle, and repeat that maneuver.
Thank you. You can resume chuckling at synchro now. After a lifeguard rescues you, of course.
``I challenge anybody to get in and do what we do,'' says Marie Lamberg, a Livonia, Mich., woman who competes with the Michigan Synchro Masters, a Detroit area club that practices at the Wayne Westland YMCA. ``People laugh about the sport. They think it's for wimps. But you have no comprehension of how difficult it is unless you try this yourself.''
If we only knew. That's the mantra chanted by synchro lovers. They say their sport requires the strength of a gymnast, the endurance of a long-distance runner and the agility of a dancer. (Gills would come in handy, too.)
It also helps to have the skin of an elephant - as in thick.
No other sport takes so much grief, not even luge. Synchro has provided fertile material for every jokester, from Letterman and Leno to comedy clubs, ever since the sport made a big splash on the Olympic stage at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.
The wiseguys make jest of the athletes' waterproof makeup. The baubles and gel in their hair. The stuck-on grins.
``Nose plugs,'' Lamberg chimes in helpfully. ``You forgot the nose plugs.''
Yeah, those too.
``We've heard all the lines,'' she adds.
Synchro swimmers, by nature, are not a bitter crowd. After all, the idea in this sport is not to make waves. The 20 women who compete for the Synchro Masters are especially easygoing. They range in age from their 20s to 71, and most have been involved with the sport since they were kids. They are not elite-level competitors. They are wives and mothers. They have lives and careers. But they make time every week to dive into the water and, well, synchronize themselves to the sound of music.
The club competes in national meets, but these women are in the sport mostly for the camaraderie and exercise, not medals.
And they let the snide comments, like water, roll off their backs. Heck, these women even find Martin Short amusing.
Or should we say the infamous Martin Short?
It used to be that Esther Williams, of vintage Hollywood water ballet film fame, was the person most identified with synchro. But that was before Short splashed around in a wickedly humorous ``Saturday Night Live'' skit. Years later, that image of a rosy-cheeked Short - wearing water wings and obligatory nose clip - performing a synchro routine in the pool's shallow end has stuck to the sport like the smell of chlorine.
``I think he was funny,'' says 35-year-old Rhonda Madej of Garden City, Mich., who has been involved in synchro since she was 9. ``I've heard celebrities say that even bad publicity is good. But at times, you take offense to some other things that are said and written. It's no fun when people just keep writing about how we put gel in our hair. That's not what this sport is all about.''
Sport, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Some people admire such artistic endeavors as figure skating, while others will immediately reach for the remote control. Synchro is another activity that straddles the gray area between athletics and art.
But consider that this is the only competition in which you cut off your oxygen supply, restrict your vision, turn upside down and use your hands like legs - at least on purpose, anyway. Like an iceberg, most of synchro is underwater. That ought to count for something, its defenders say.
Laura LaCursia, a University of Michigan graduate who now lives in California and is the U.S. Olympic synchro squad's team manager, says she longs for the day when the first question a reporter poses isn't about mascara or hair goop. She'll even settle for that being the second one.
``Imagine trying to run while holding your breath,'' she says. ``That's what this is like.
``The idea is to make it look easy, and maybe that has worked against us over the years. Maybe we should make it look like we feel.''
So it's hard. Most open-minded people would concede that. They might even admit that it must require some skill as competitors choreograph their synchronized movements to music during a five-minute routine designed to impress the 10 judges.
Still, what's the point of performing ballet in the water with all that grinning, head bobbing, exaggerated arm extensions and legs sticking out above the surface? For the segment of the public that believes any serious sport must require the threat of bruising, synchro can look, well, silly.
``You can talk to some people until you're blue in the face, and you're not going to change their minds,'' Madej says. ``But for me personally, this is a sport I could do. I'm a klutz. I can't handle a basketball. I run like a clod. But I have grace in the water because of the weightlessness.''
As for synchro's decorative accessories and other trappings, which make it such an inviting target, Madej says those are unavoidable tools of the trade. Nose plugs are a necessity when you're underwater so much. They wear flashy swimsuits, some adorned with sequins, for the same reason ice skaters don eye-catching outfits - to add to the presentation. The thick gel is applied so everybody's hairstyle looks identical. After all, the desired effect is to appear like they emerged from the same cookie cutter. You know, synchronized.
``The only reason why we wear makeup,'' Madej adds, ``is because after you've been under the water for 30 seconds, you look dead, or at least like somebody should jump in and give you CPR.''
LENGTH: Long : 127 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Members of the Metro Michigan Synchro Masters (above)by CNBperform a maneuver called a "flush" at the Northville Swim Club in
Detroit. 2. Later they smile as they line up poolside (left). The
club would like to see more people take the sport seriously.
color.< Knight-Ridder/Tribune