KEY POINTS:
When Nina and Lisa Daniels come home to Dunedin after the Olympic Games, what is the chance they'll pop up to the Moana Pool for a casual dip?
Being in the water together has been a dominant part of their life for the last eight years and the
culmination of that time will come in Beijing next month when they contest the duet discipline in the synchronised swimming event.
The sisters won the Oceania slot at the Swiss Open last July and their scores from an event in China shortly after proved their capability of producing a top 16 performance in the field of 24.
But they have given up plenty to achieve their Olympic dream.
In January 2005 they headed to Toronto to work with prominent Canadian coach Sheila Croxon, the national team's coach at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Although they have been home every year since for a time, Toronto has been home and preparing for the Games a full-time occupation.
They've missed their real home but accept it as part of the deal.
"There were way too many distractions at home," Lisa, at 23, three years younger than her sister, said.
"It would be harder to get into a regular training schedule, meeting friends, this and that happening. It's definitely been a good experience being here and we've got a lot of improvement from that."
And living in each other's space all that time?
She laughs, then says: "We do have disagreements and we're both such perfectionists. Sometimes we leave it up to the coach to take charge."
There must be tough days when they wondered whether it was all worth it.
"We definitely had a few days like that but we've got each other to get through them. It does get hard but you look at the bright side. We're going to the Olympics and that was a huge goal for us. Even if you got down, you'd remember why we're doing it."
The synchro competition has two parts - technical and freestyle.
The first element is a set structure of work each combination must complete. Freestyle enables the pairs to express themselves with their own routine.
There's a trick: option one is a safe routine, which might be easier but will produce a lower score; option two is incorporating more difficult aspects which, if performed well, earn higher marks.
"In the past we've done a lot better in our free routine but this year so far we've done better in the technical programme," Lisa said.
"I think it's because we've got a lot more consistent in those elements we have to perform. The routine is natural to us, we've had it a while, feel comfortable and focused doing that.
"Our free routine is a little newer, trying to increase the difficulty and get the repetition." By the time of the competition, she is confident both will be equally good.
Then there's the judging, two panels of five, one for technical merit, the other assessing artistic impression. As Lisa put it, "they are the highest quality in the world".
Dodgy decision-making has been a problem at times in the past; it is the bane of all Olympic sports which require subjective judging.
But Lisa Daniels is pragmatic.
"You can't do anything about the judges; we've no control over that."
The sisters got into the sport from ballet. Their respective partners quit so their coach suggested they team up. They were competing together during their years at Otago Girls High, progressing to a point where they won a bronze medal at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games two years ago. But they are now heading for the biggest stage, an unforgiving environment where they will square off with the world's best.
They've been training 30-35 hours a week, a mix of pool and gym work, and much like the feeling a golfer or batsman gets when a ball is struck as sweetly as possible, they know intuitively when they've done a top-class routine.
The difference here is that two people, with their bodies at least halfway submerged, must be in perfect unison. The sparkly make-up and spray-painted smiles hide a sport as gruelling as any, in its own way.
And when the Olympics are over there'll be time to contemplate the future. Nina is into design and has done papers at Otago University; Lisa wants to work in human nutrition.
London 2012 is a long way in the future. For now, matching that top-16 expectation is the aim.
"We really just want to make sure we have the best performances we can," Lisa said. "You don't know what other countries are doing." She talks of Russia and Spain as the strongest gold medal contenders.
"We'll just do the best we can."
Lisa reckons the sisters are similar in temperament - "strong personalities. We know what we want". No prizes for guessing what's in their sights right now.
