The Ontario Winter Games (OWG) is Ontario’s largest multi-sport event providing young athletes with development and competitive opportunities.
Competitive synchronized swimmer Gillian Lampkin, 16, of Fergus, and her seven teammates from the KW Synchro Club have qualified to compete in the OWG from Feb. 27 to March 2 in Bracebridge, Muskoka.
Lampkin began dancing at the age of three and says it helped her become a better synchronized swimmer.
“I did swimming lessons prior to going into synchro and I actually wasn’t a very strong swimmer,” Lampkin said.
“Dance helped me excel in synchro by helping me understand my body and music and use it together to perform well.”
Lampkin has been competing for four years now, and trains four days a week, which is close to 15 hours per week.
“Even with her busy schedule she still gets an 85 per cent average in high school,” said Gillian’s father, Brad Lampkin.
Synchro swimming is a form of swimming, dance and gymnastics, consisting of swimmers in team, combo, duet or solo arrangements performing a synchronized routine of intricate moves in the water, to music they have selected to suit the routine.
Lampkin and her teammates call themselves the “Frog Team” and their theme for the routine they will be performing in the OWG is frogs.
“We had a competition before competing at OWG trials to know where we were in relation to the other teams in the region,” Lampkin said.
“Being in front of an audience my whole life has helped me control my nerves when it comes to competition time.”
Before each competition, the swimmers put Knox Gelatine in their hair to keep it out of their faces, to keep it looking nice, and so that everyone looks the same. About half of a synchronized swimming routine is performed with the athlete’s head under water, which is why it is important for each athlete to have exceptional breath control, along with many other traits like flexibility, artistry, strength and endurance.
“I could never do a front-crawl because I had horrible breath control, even for a short period of time. But now front-crawl is my favorite stroke to do,” Lampkin said.
“I can now hold my breath under water for about 50 metres.”
During a competition, the judges mark each competitors’s routines based on:
– technical merit, which is 50% of the total routine mark and includes the execution, synchronization and difficulty of each routine; and
– artistic expression, which is the remaining 50% of the score, and is based on the choreography (which is usually developed by the coaches, and sometimes with the help of the swimmers), music interpretation and presentation (how well the routine fits with the music).
The athletes must maintain a certain facial expression throughout the performance, making it look easy, even when it isn’t.
“Gillian spends so much time working towards her swimming that it’s a really big accomplishment to go to the Ontario Winter Games,” said Gillian’s mother, Cheryl Lampkin.
