Romashina said she gradually fell in love with synchronized swimming

Seven-time Olympic champion Svetlana Romachina said she gradually fell in love with synchronized swimming and still loves it today.

Romashina is the most successful synchronized swimmer in history.

— For a very long time, the leaders of our sport were our colleagues from America and Canada, synchronized swimming in our country was only gaining momentum. And for the first time in 2000, Maria Kiseleva and Olga Brusnikina became pioneers who won the first Olympic gold medal for our country in synchronized swimming. This was a major breakthrough. Synchronized swimming became more popular, girls began to come to synchronized swimming, now everything has become more interesting – boys also began to come to synchronized swimming.

My life turned out to be quite interesting. Fate played a role – my parents came from a simple family, they just sent me to the paddling pool to learn to swim – for beautiful posture, so they could throw me into the river without worrying . Then no one thought about sports and synchronized swimming (for me). The pool had two bowls – for smooth swimming and for synchronized swimming. They took me by the hand and led me to the right door, where the synchronized swimming was taking place. For what? Nobody knows. Everything was beautiful – the music, the girls, but I only knew how to swim like a dog. <…> Time passed and I was brought to the first competition at the Olimpiysky. I looked at it, burst into tears and said I didn’t want to do this anymore. But the very next day I went to training and started training even harder.

I gradually fell in love with this sport and I still love it today,” said Romashina, speaking at the Knowledge Society amphitheater.