BEAUTIFUL yet bold, artistic yet athletic is an apt description for the intriguing world of artistic swimming.

Burgeoning in Jamaica, the sport, which combines rhythmic movements, technical skills, and swimming abilities has found a home within the camp of Jamaica’s largest swim club — the Tornadoes Swim Club.

Championing the artistic swimming movement for the Tornadoes is head coach and local aquatics stalwart Wendy Lee, and her latest coaching recruit Jessica Baez, a former Cuban artistic swimming national athlete. Together the mighty pair have already created a medal-winning squad while passing on passion and self-confidence in the young girls charged to their care.

“While artistic swimming or synchronised swimming as some may know it has been in Jamaica for a long time, our club has been focused on competitive swimming and triathlon training for the greater part of the last 30 years. So this move to Tornadoes Artistic Swimming is an effort to expand our expertise and winning ways of our athletes to yet another aquatic discipline,” shared Lee.

She is confident that artistic swimming can take Jamaica to places it has not been in sport.

“We have the speed, flexibility, and natural rhythm — all qualities needed to succeed in the sport which, as you know, is a long-recognised Olympic sporting discipline,” she added. Lee further highlighted that experience in dance and gymnastic skills are assets in combination with swimming competencies.

“What we unfortunately lack locally is space to train and enough experienced coaches to help our local athletes blossom. I believe that there is more for us, and this drives our continued efforts as a club with the athletes that we mentor.”

Looking to Jamaica’s closest northern neighbour Cuba – where the sport flourishes – Lee has recruited Baez to join the Tornadoes family as the lead coach for artistic swimming. To address the challenge of training space, Lee has also taken over management of the Olympic-sized pool at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, where she has been successfully able to expand training options for her club swimmers and has restarted a learn-to-swim programme for both children and adults.

Lee also hailed the efforts of Olga Novokshchenova in Portland, Yoaris Araujo — another Cuban national — and Robin Chin Sang, all of Island Aquatics Club, for their contribution to growing the sport locally for many years.

For her part, Baez says that Jamaica is teeming with swimming talent and she feels privileged to have the opportunity to help take it to the next level.

“In Cuba we have many young girls doing artistic swimming and we have enjoyed success many times on an international scale with our professional athletes. Here in Jamaica, it [artistic swimming] is not as popular and perhaps not widely understood, so we often have to just introduce it to all swimmers and then see who sticks,” shared Baez.

She has been working with the Tornadoes swimmers for just over a year and currently has a team of about 12 athletes, ranging in age from seven years old to 13 years old, who train and compete consistently.

“During training, in addition to the figures and routines, we work to further build swimming skills and stamina through land training and flexibility training of our athletes. Good swimming competencies are needed to facilitate the rigorous exercises required,” Baez highlighted.

In the last competition hosted by the Aquatic Sports Association of Jamaica, the Tornadoes swimmers took gold and silver for efforts in three categories.

“We compete in figures — which are the technical movements of the discipline — and in routines, which involves choreography of those movements to music and performed by soloists, duets, trios, or teams,” she explained. “It is all very technical, but beautiful, and our local swimmers are up to the challenge. It is also a lot of fun for the girls, especially when it comes to selecting music, costumes, and other preparations for competition,” she added. Baez showered kudos on Jamaican athletes who she says are fast years and have a “will-win” attitude.

For the upcoming summer period, new athletes will be introduced to the sport during a training camp planned by the club that is scheduled to run from July 3 to 27 and August 14 to 28 at the The UWI pool. A special open day will be hosted today at the same venue for interested swimmers to sample the experience. To participate, swimmers must be able to swim 50m unassisted and be comfortable in deep water.

While the club offers training for competition year round, Baez says the summer provides an opportunity for them to whet the appetite of campers and introduce them to the sport.

“Swimmers of all ages are welcomed to participate in our summer programme and thereafter, we are looking forward to expanding the programme with anyone that is interested,” Lee noted.

“If your child has interest and some basic skills in a combination of swimming with dancing or gymnastics, they just may like or be good at artistic swimming,” she added.

The aquatic discipline requires a high level of commitment and consistency to unearth the best results. Currently, the Tornadoes athletes, who are mainly students, train six hours per week; however, the club offers a more recreational option for casual learners during the regular training season.

“Our mission at the Tornadoes is to foster teamwork, perseverance, and excellence in all our aquatic undertakings – artistic swimming is no different,” shared Lee.

The head coach hopes to continue the club’s winning ways in local artistic swimming competitions and is eyeing international events in 2024 for participation.