May, Spendlove Win Mixed Duet at Synchro America Open

“I’m really happy with how they are improving every day,” she said. “And especially Victoria because she’s just 16 years old – it’s quite impressive how fast she’s improving to get to Anita’s level. She brings some power in duet free.

“All of the judges were giving me feedback, about how hard the routine looks – and it is hard. They swim nine figures in a three-minute routine. Normally a good routine has six or seven – we’ve got nine. They probably spend more time underwater than above. It’s not perfect yet, but I like to be perfect at the right time, and we’ve got three weeks.”

In the solo final, Carbonell, an Olympic medalist, won gold with 92.5000 points in the free final for 182.8424 combined points. Fellow Olympian Jacqueline Simoneau of Canada earned silver with 178.2333 points (90.2333 in free) and Berlin’s Michelle Zimmer won bronze at 155.5901 (78.0000 free). Optima Synchro’s Caitlin Klauer was fourth overall with 149.0298 points.

Alexandra Suarez, a member of the U.S. National Training Squad, was sixth in free with 75.4000 points.

Synchro Australia scored 129.7606 points to edge Ohio Coralinas (128.7061) to win gold in the junior free team final. Optima Synchro was first in the senior highlight final, scoring 73.2667 points to Heartland Synchro’s 67.6667.

USA Synchro CEO Myriam Glez was happy to see the competitors from 15 countries help each other during the three-day event.

“I think the competition went quite well. We were happy to have that many countries. Everybody’s having some good performances,” she said. “It’s actually a really friendly atmosphere between the different countries that are here. There’s some nice collaboration with the other groups and being able to get feedback from everybody. The Canadians are providing feedback to the Americans, and the Americans are providing feedback to the Canadians and other counties too, so it’s been nice to be able to do that.

“For some of the countries, this is the last step before Worlds. So they see what they need to change and what they need to clean up in the routine. This is the last test to see what strategically we can and cannot do.”

The Synchro America Open presented by Le Rêve – The Dream is part of the inaugural FINA Synchronized Swimming World Series. The World Series integrates existing synchro events from all over the world, with each leg staged in conjunction with existing national opens and competitions. For more information of the FINA Synchronized Swimming World Series, go to http://www.fina.org/news/fina-launches-new-synchro-world-series.

Press release courtesy of USA Synchro