First Vice-President of the Russian Synchronized Swimming Federation Olga Brusnikina believes that the issue of substitutes should be raised, because three programs for group competitions at the Olympic Games without substitutes is a heavy burden, and this situation carries risks.
On Tuesday, the International Swimming Federation (FINA) announced that from now on synchronized swimming Olympics medals in group competitions will be decided based on the results of three routines – acrobatic has been added to free and technical.
“We have heard that there are plans to include an acrobatic group in the competition program of the Olympic Games, but so far we have not seen any official documents from FINA or the IOC,” said Brusnikina at .
– I can say that it will be a very heavy burden for the girls and the coaches. We have a limited team at the Olympics – eight people. And these eight people will have to do three programs in the group, two of them still have to perform as a duo in two programs.
Previously, the “highlight” was an analogue of the acrobatic group, and before there were ten people, and now minus two people – I do not know how spectacular it will be. Ten of them would have looked much more impressive.
At one point, the technical committee raised this question about the inclusion of an acrobatic program. She said that it was worth thinking about increasing the number of participants to ten, but, as I understand it, this was not entirely acceptable to the IOC, and this idea could not be realized .
We do not have regular substitutes at the Games, there is only one alternate athlete, which is quite difficult to declare (this can only be done in an emergency – about “”). And the acrobatic program is quite traumatic, and it wouldn’t hurt to have substitutes who will be part of the team, with accreditation etc. I hope this issue will be brought before the IOC in the future.
Source : MatchTV
