I was the nominated British judge at the European Synchronised Swimming Championships, Eindhoven, The Netherlands earlier this month. It is the major European event of the year and with the Olympic qualifiers less than 5 weeks away, there was a real sense of excitement but also pressure on both swimmers and officials to put in some good performances.
Officiating at major events has taken on extra interest for me as LOCOG begins the meticulous preparation of the customer experiences to ensure that all our client groups, from athletes, spectators, partners to, of course, technical officials have a truly memorable experience. Every opportunity to learn from others is soaked up at London 2012, so during my stay I was constantly looking for ways of helping my colleagues with information.
The Dutch people were fabulous hosts, I met several of the wonderful 600 volunteers from Netherlands, Belgium and France, all of whom were so proud to be involved in this event.
The opening ceremony was held at the town hall. Apart from the traditional speeches from the organisers, the Mayor, the Queen’s representative, it was a very passionate speech from the president of the Dutch Olympic Committee, herself a European Swimming Champion indicating their desire to host an Olympic and Paralympic Games in the future. Their target date...2028, 100 years since they last hosted the Games. A cool laser show and an appearance by Splashy the mascot finished the evening.
Splashy takes a break from the water:
And then the competition began. European Synchro is very strong although there was some disappointment that Russia (the current Olympic Champions) had withdrawn from duet and team events through illness. Russia has dominated world synchro for many years but Spain has been catching up and are leading the world in creativity and innovation and we were all looking forward to seeing them battle it out for the title. In the solo event, the final was almost too close to call and Gemma Mengual from Spain beating Natalia Ischenko from Russia by just 0.100 of a mark.
The solo medallists:
Great Britain competed in the solo and duet events. Jenna Randall and Olivia Allison have been training as full time athletes at the High Performance Centre for athletes since January 2006. The improvement was evident for all to see and they moved up 4 places from 2 years ago, finishing 9th in the both events.
As a judged sport, one of the most frequently asked questions relates to whether judges are biased or not. FINA (the International Swimming Federation) have been putting measures in place to eliminate bias and all international judges now have to attend ‘Judge School’ once every 2 years. The organisers and referees of the competition assess the performance of the judges throughout the preliminary rounds and only the best judges, with no bias are selected for finals. With extremely hot conditions in the pool, long periods of concentration needed the pressure of ensuring every mark is correct it can become intense. But the competition finally ended and we could all enjoy a more relaxing time at the post-competition party.
And then it was all over. As we said our goodbyes, the focus already is turning to the Olympic qualifiers, in Beijing. As the Synchro event is a one of several test events, I am hoping to encourage a couple of London 2012 colleagues who are travelling out to learn from our colleagues in the Beijing Organising Committee to come along and support the British athletes in their attempt to qualify for their first Olympic Games since 1996 (and to watch me judge!).
