5 Reasons Why the World Championships Post Olympics is the Best Competition

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Olympics, but for Synchro the top 8 teams in the World are not always represented at the Olympics.  Sometimes that is because the host country gets an automatic entry into the event and most recently the rule that all continents will be represented almost guarantees the top 8 teams will not be at the Olympics.

So here brings me to why the world championships following the Olympics is the best competition.

1.  You get to see which countries have suffered the most from swimmers retiring after the Olympics.  It may give us a glimpse into what this quad is going to look like.  Ukraine are you here to stay in the top 3?

2.  Who are the surprises if any?  This time Ukraine breaks into the top 3. I think I was too mesmerized by Team Canada’s success in 2012 to take notice that Ukraine was sitting waiting to jump up the leader board.  On the flip side Canada falls in solos and duets more drastically than I would have anticipated, but when I think about who was prepped to step in once the previous solo and duet swimmers retired. Hmmm?

3.  Who is swimming new routines, old routines, or swapped their tech for free?  Russia rechoreographed their free team for their technical routine.  I liked it as a free and I like it as a tech routine too.

4.  The different strategies each country takes at the competition.  USA and China did not send their teams.  Canada opted for all new routines except in Combo.

5.  All the new figures and elements come out.  Besides getting bored from the same figures and elements from the last 4 years, new skills will separate the great coaches and great athletes from the good ones.  The best coaches can figure out how to coach the new skills right away and the best athletes can do anything asked of them.

This is just a quick post to get you all thinking and I hope to have a blog up in a few days with some more specific analysis of Worlds.

Let me know what your thoughts are from Worlds.  What was your favourite moment? Any surprises for you?  Who do you think is looking good? Who’s not looking good?