Equipped with an underwater speaker, a microphone and some empty milk jugs needed for teaching body position and control, Coach Isla Crawford leads her swim team during a recent practice at the Ron Levy Aquatic Center inside Founders Park.
They call themselves the Synchro Sirens and in the world of artistic swimming (the new name for synchronized swimming) these young women from the Upper Keys are getting noticed.
“We just got back from one competition in Stuart where they just blew their competition out of the water, it was awesome,” Crawford said. “My swimmer that placed first in her entire division, this is only her second year competing.”
The swimmer to place first in the 13-15 age group intermediate division was Natalie Goodwin. In the 9-10 age group, Sirena Aguirre took home first place honors in the individual figures category.
Crawford, who was born and raised in the Florida Keys, began introducing this sport to local children during a summer camp in 2014. She started her first competitive team with only four swimmers in 2015.
Today, the team consists of 11 young girls and teenagers, ages 7 through 15. There are no boys on the team, but they are welcome to join. In the past, some boys have attended the summer camps.
As is usually the case, the easier something looks, the more difficult it is to pull off. That holds true when it comes to the sport of artistic swimming.
“There are a lot of different disciplines in the sport,” Crawford said. “You have to have flexibility, you have to have strength, lung conditioning of course, they can’t touch the bottom of the pool at all when they’re competing, they’re treading water the whole time,” she added.
Crawford knows the challenges of this sport first hand. As a child she practiced classical ballet and gymnastics but really wanted to be a swimmer. When she was 10 years old, her parents wisely nudged her towards synchronized swimming.
“I had a talent for dancing and music and that kind of thing, but my passion was swimming so it was like the two sports combined,” said Crawford. Crawford was recruited by Ohio State University where she won two championships on a division one team.
Now, this mother of a 2-year-old daughter is molding other young aspiring artistic swimmers, swimmers like Kyla Biondoletti and Ashlynn Hann. Both are 9-years-old and in third grade at Plantation Key School. The girls are not only duet partners, they are best friends.
“It’s really fun, we get to do everything in synchro together,” said Biondoletti. “We won second place in Stuart,” proudly added Hann.
Both girls say they really enjoy the practices that take place four times a week.
“This is honestly the first year of all the years that I’ve been coaching that these girls want to be coached. There’s no whining when I have them work hard, they do it,” said Crawford of what she calls an exceptionally talented and hard working team.
While Crawford focuses on teaching the swimmers routines, her father, Brian Turner, helps the team with conditioning.
“The biggest thing, especially when they first start out is being able to learn their orientation in the water because we do a lot of stuff upside down so that kind of flips their brain around,” said Crawford.
Crawford says the difficulty of this sport has long been underestimated.
“For so long we fought the stigma of ‘you’re doing underwater basket weaving, it’s this silly goofy thing,’and I think it’s like one of the hardest sports I’ve ever seen,” Crawford said.
Alice Dangel started competing with the Synchro Sirens when she was 7 years old. Now the Coral Shores High School student is 16 years old and is a volunteer coach with the team. Dangel receives community service hours for her coaching role with the team and says the experience is gratifying.
“I definitely think it’s rewarding,” Dangel said. “It feels really great when you do well at competitions.”
Up next for the Synchro Sirens is the Intermediate State Championship in Davie on April 22. Five members of the team will go up against other athletes from South Florida, debuting their Marvel superhero routine that they have been working tirelessly to perfect.
If you’d like to learn more about joining the Synchro Sirens competitive team or the summer camp, visit synchrosirens.com or contact Crawford at SynchroSirens@gmail.com.
Crawford also shared a complete list of results from the Stuart competition. The list can be found by visiting keysweekly.com.
