Synchronised Swimming: Tauranga athletes aim for world champs experience ahead of Olympic goals

Tauranga synchronised swimmers Eden Worsley (left) and Eva Morris will compete in the duet competition at the world championships in South Korea next month. Photo / Andrew Warner

Experience - it's the key focus for New Zealand's synchronised swimming team ahead of their world championship campaign next month.

The national synchro squad, the Aquaferns, which has a strong Tauranga representation with Tauranga Synchro members Eden Worsley, Isobel Pettit, Karlina Steiner, Eva Morris and Zyleika Pratt-Smith, will represent New Zealand at the Fina World Championships in South Korea from July 12-28.

The team is also coached by Tauranga Synchro's head coach Lara Cianciarulo Teixeira.

Teixeira, who has represented Brazil at the Olympics three times - Beijing in 2008, London in 2012 and Rio in 2016 - has a career that spans about two decades and loves being able to share her knowledge with the younger generation in the sport.

"As soon as I retired Tauranga Synchro and New Zealand Synchronised swimming invited me to come to lead this group and the club and lead the national team as well," Teixeira says.

For the 2019 Aquaferns, it is their first world championships and Teixeira says their focus is to gain experience in the hope of representing New Zealand at future Olympic Games.

"I'm really confident that the girls will represent New Zealand in the best way," Teixeira says.

"We have a group of nine girls who are going to represent New Zealand. Also we have really good long term plan is to raise New Zealand standards and then qualify New Zealand to the Olympic Games in 2024," she says.

The team go into camp in Hamilton on Sunday until July 3 when they will head to Auckland to carry out a display of their work before leaving for South Korea on July 5.

Teixeira says everyone is feeling good about their world championship campaign, and while their main focus is gaining experience competing against the best swimmers in the world, coming away with some good points will be a bonus.

"You never know, we never go to lose we always go to win."

Captaining this year's Aquaferns to the world champs is Tauranga's Eva Morris, who will be competing at her third world champs event.

She will perform duets with Eden Worsley and Isobel Pettit, as part of the team but will also compete in her first solo competition.

"It's the first time that I've ever gone solo at the world champs and its the first time we've been with this duet and this team, so it's just kind of about going out there and doing our best swim and then seeing where that places us and we'll be able to build on that moving forward," Morris says.

The 21-year-old says the whole team is really excited about their campaign and are looking forward to seeing some amazing talent and improving their own craft.

"You're up against the best people in the world it's more competition than an Olympic Games is because you get to go up against everyone in the synchro world from like Russia, Ukraine and then all the Asian countries. China, Japan they're very strong countries so as much of it is a competition for us it's also really nice to watch the other teams and see how hard they train and you always come back feeling very inspired to keep working harder."

Aquaferns' Tauranga athletes:
Eva Morris (captain), Eden Worsley, Isobel Pettit, Karlina Steiner, Zyleika Pratt-Smith.
Coach: Lara Cianciarulo Teixeira