The only two synchronized swimmers representing the U.S. at the Olympics are Mary Killman and Mariya Koroleva. Here they discuss their brutal training schedule and underwater cardio exertion, and how far people's perception of their sport differs from reality.
Mariya Koroleva (left) and Mary Killman.
Source: John Bragg
Mary Killman, 21, and Mariya Koroleva, 22, will represent the US in the synchronized swimming ("synchro" for short) duet event in London. Koroleva is a student at Stanford, and Killman hasn't yet entered college but hopes to one day major in art history. The US didn't qualify in the larger team event, so they'll be the only synchronized swimmers from the county competing in the 2012 Games.
What's the hardest thing about what you do?
Mary: I think it's making it look easy. The easier we can make it look the better we are at it. The goal is to make people think it's totally [easy] — then if they try it, they realize how hard it is.
Mariya: You're striving to be perfect, which is pretty much impossible. When it gets close to competition, you're changing these little minute things. The differences are so small, and it's really hard to make those changes. We have to match every single position with each other. If an arm angle is two inches off, it doesn't look the same. Our routine is three and a half minutes long and we have about 1,000 positions we have to hit. Knowing exactly where to put your hand or leg is really hard.
How do the choreographed elements of the competition affect the athleticism required?
Mary: You have to be upside down for half of our routine. We're holding our breath for that entire time. It's a full-body workout — we're not track athletes where it's mainly core and legs. We use the same eggbeater motion as water polo players do, but we're doing it with our arms too. And when a competitive [non-sychronized] swimmer wants to breathe, they just breathe. But for us we have to wait the next eight counts, or however long until we're not upside-down anymore.
How did you get into a lesser-known sport like this?
Mary Killman: I got involved when I was 11, in Texas. I started with competitive swimming, and one of my teammates got me involved in a summer program in synchro. Mariya moved to California when she was 9 from Russia. She moved into the Walnut Creek area, which has a big synchro team, and signed up for a summer program there.
Talk about an average day for you.
Mariya Koroleva: On a typical day we have two water practices. So we do two and a half hours of water practice in the morning, then to the weight room, then back to the pool for three or three and a half more hours. Then sometimes we'll have cardio, or we'll go through the video of the day's practice.
Mary Killman and Mariya Koroleva during an Olympics qualifying event in April.
Image by Clive Rose / Getty Images
