“Now a synchronized swimming coach faces a serious task: to take up mathematics or waste energy on beauty” – Ishchenko

Five-time Olympic synchronized swimming champion Natalia Ishchenko told that due to the lack of international competitions, it is more difficult for athletes to get used to the new rules of the sport.

Among World Aquatics’ conditions for admitting neutral athletes is the absence of national symbols and active support of the CBO. Individual neutral athletes will only be allowed to compete in events where the time or result is determined by an athlete’s performance. Thus, Russians will not be able to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games in synchronized swimming and water polo. Earlier also, World Aquatics introduced new rules for synchronized swimming.

— Synchronized swimming found itself in the most difficult situation among all other sports.

— I won’t say that our sport is in the most difficult situation. But our rules have also changed. We must now make every effort to get used to it, by changing all program approaches. And when female athletes aren’t competing on the international stage, it’s harder to adapt. But for me, as an inactive athlete, it is difficult to assess this, because our team participated in the Russian Cup and the Russian Championship according to new rules, and for me, from the outside, the transition seems difficult. It is not yet clear which is rated most highly. Synchronized swimming has lost a lot artistically and artistically. The coach faces a serious task: to engage in mathematics and calculate the complexity, or to devote energy to beauty and try to preserve the sport that we are used to seeing, “Ishchenko told .