USA Olympics team in sync with aquatic centre

The USA synchronised swimming squad hailed the National Aquatic Centre as a “world-class facility” they intend to use as their base for every European competition they participate in.

The squad have been training at the centre since arriving on Monday ahead of their Olympics qualifier in London next week and will perform an exhibition of their Games routines there on Saturday. All proceeds will go to Temple St Hospital, which the swimmers visited on Tuesday.

This is the first of three pre-Olympics training camps the Americans will hold at the centre.

“We began looking two years ago” said Gigi Grizanti, the national team co-ordinator.

“We had two options in England — one in Sheffield and one in London. I happened to get an email from Dave [Conway, development manager at the National Aquatic Centre] about this facility and I went to research it online.

“I said to the organisers at home, ‘do you mind if I stop in Dublin on the way home?’ I was over really to put the rubber stamp on Sheffield. I was impressed with the facilities and the people but when I came here, they blew me away. Not only for the world class facility but I knew that the girls would be far enough away from the fray that Dublin was going to make them feel special.

“I wanted them to leave here mentally ready and feeling like celebrities and they really are. I can’t tell you how much the Irish welcome means to them. They are enjoying every nuance of what an Irish welcome means to them.”

Perhaps not every nuance, as the swimmers have very strict regimens in a sport in which aesthetics are essential. But given that they themselves raise funds to participate at elite level, they are not accustomed to being spoiled, and so that is almost as important as the amenities.

Grizanti said: “You have to be mentally prepared to walk out in front of the world. The whole world is watching. They need to feel confident, prepared and special and this is working for them beautifully. This is a world-class facility, it’s got great training, it’s got everything we need and they’ve been accommodating on every request we could possibly have.

“We’d like to make this our European training base when we have other competitions in Europe and we’re really looking forward to working with the little swimmers.”

Grizanti also hoped the USA squad could leave a synchronised swimming “footprint”.

Meeting and encouraging young Irish synchronised swimmers is part of that, and some children watched them train yesterday ahead of their role in Saturday’s exhibition, for which all 2,000 tickets have been sold.

“We’ve always said the National Aquatic Centre is a world-class facility and having teams like the US endorses that” said Dave Conway.

“We had the Koreans a couple of weeks ago and we have six nations coming to a water polo tournament in July, with the Olympic champions Hungary coming in July having been so impressed the last time they were here.”