What Inventive Swimmers Want You Knew About This Completely Grueling Olympic Sport

Whereas lots of people suppose creative swimming is delightfully antiquated—a bunch of “bathing beauties” in floral swim caps and cherry-lipped smiles—that concept is a drained previous stereotype that Daniella Ramirez, a Workforce USA creative swimmer set to compete on the 2024 Olympic Video games, is sick of listening to. She’s amassed a TikTok following along with her post-performance, ASMR-esque “get unready with me” movies, and he or she’s hoping her content material in the end brings extra consideration to, and respect for, a grueling (generally harmful) sport she’s spent her total life—fairly actually, her mother and grandmother have been athletes too—perfecting.

Ramirez not too long ago spoke with SELF on what it takes to compete in creative swimming at an Olympic stage; why she’s uninterested in misogynistic, sexualized associations of the game; how scary being inverted underwater can really be; and different issues she needs extra individuals knew.

SELF: In creative swimming, there’s a lot emphasis on artistry and wonder—in a predominantly feminine sport. Do you generally really feel like outsiders don’t take it as significantly as they need to due to this?

Daniella Ramirez: I really feel like my purpose as a content material creator has all the time been to make our sport extra revered and put it within the limelight—to indicate individuals how arduous it really is. Individuals are inclined to affiliate creative swimming with Esther Williams, or ladies diving right into a pool sideways in a line. It’s all the time tremendous hypersexualized, or we’re within the again simply being fairly. It’s not like that. We’re not showgirls who contact the underside of the pool, put an arm and a leg up, and look good. I feel it’s very irritating for me to speak about as a result of it’s so ingrained into American Hollywood that synchronized swimming is background dancing for a pool get together. There are quite a lot of misconceptions there.

Workforce USA, together with Daniella Ramirez, competing on the Doha 2024 World Aquatics Championships.

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In order that’s one widespread false impression about creative swimming—you can stand in your ft underwater throughout competitors?

Individuals all the time suppose we contact the underside, however I’ve by no means, ever touched the underside of the pool in a routine, ever. What’s one other good false impression? The freaking flower caps. Can we finish it with the flower caps? Please put that in there. Please finish flower caps.

Apart from previous sexist media associations, why do you suppose some individuals have such a misunderstanding of the game?

While you take a look at somebody like Simone Biles, I really feel prefer it’s simpler to grasp simply how arduous her sport is as a result of it’s on land, and we all know how physics works. Lots of people are inclined to suppose swimming itself is simple, but it surely’s tremendous arduous as it’s. Now as an alternative of swimming forwards and backwards, think about going up and down too, and treading water. That’s creative swimming.

In Paris, you and your teammates might be within the pool competing for roughly three to three-and-a-half minutes at a time (on three consecutive days). How lengthy does it take to arrange for these performances?

Main as much as the competitors, we’re coaching within the pool for about two hours a day, three days per week, for one efficiency. However that’s simply time within the water—we do a ton of different exercises, like CrossFit, however with our mouths taped to assist with breath management since we’re underwater a lot. We need to make it possible for our lungs are actually, actually robust. We additionally do quite a lot of weight coaching with excessive reps and fairly low weights. Lengthy earlier than a contest, we’ll additionally do regular swimming—we’ll swim laps for 3 hours a day at some factors.

Workforce USA, together with Daniella Ramirez, competing on the Doha 2024 World Aquatics Championships.

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Talking of your respiratory, you and your teammates spend a *lot* of time underwater—generally half of your efficiency! Has it gotten simpler over time as you’ve grown in your sport?