The first artistic swimming categories will be available at the Paris 2024 Olympics starting on Thursday. Interestingly, men will be permitted to compete—a change from earlier iterations.
In December 2022, the International Olympic Committee announced that male competitors could only compete in the eight-athlete team event and could not compete in the two-athlete duet event.
To start with, the pool consists of 96 participants from 18 different countries, so even the most astute observers won’t be able to distinguish the differences.
Male participation in artistic swimming, which was renamed synchronized swimming in 2017, has a convoluted and lengthy history.
Men were big fans of the sport when it initially started to gain popularity in the United States in the early 20th century. Ultimately, though, male competitors were eliminated because of physical attributes that made it more difficult for them to execute splits: they were thicker, less flexible, and less buoyant than female competitors.
In 1984, artistic swimming was added to the Olympic program, allowing all athletes to participate in that category only. This restriction has not been altered in the previous forty years.
Despite his aspirations of finally fulfilling his Olympic ambition in Paris, 45-year-old U.S. swimmer Bill May was eventually left off of the Team USA list that was revealed in June.
This year’s program includes an acrobatic routine for the eight ladies who cut in addition to technical and free routines.
One further modification is the new grading system, which awards points for both creative impression and execution.
To calculate the difficulty score, judges will receive a card from the coaches that describes the routine. Athletes will receive a lower mark if their routine does not match the card or contains mistakes.
The Olympic website states that China, a “dominant force” in recent years, is predicted to win six medals overall, including the gold in the team and duet competitions.
At the Olympics, artistic swimming teams from the USA, Spain, Japan, and Ukraine will compete alongside Mexico.
The medal days for the team competition and duet competition are August 7 and August 10, respectively. August 5–August 10 is when the competition will take place.
