KEY POINTS:
Anyone who considers synchronised swimming to be a joke of a sport may want to reassess after examining the training schedule of New Zealand sisters Nina and Lisa Daniels.
It seems "synchro" is serious business.
The Kiwi duet are next year set to become the first New Zealand
synchronised swimming representatives at an Olympic Games in 24 years, following in the footsteps of sisters Katie and Lynette Sadleir, who competed at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.
The sport has changed markedly since the Sadleir sisters competed, with the Daniels putting in up to 40 hours a week in training at their base in Toronto, Canada.
Their extensive regime includes around five hours each day in the pool, gym work, land drills, stretching and yoga.
What has not changed since the 1980s is the profile of the sport in New Zealand, with synchro having a very limited following.
There are just six dedicated synchronised swimming clubs in the country with participation numbers at around 120.
For the Dunedin sisters, who won a bronze medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, putting in the hours of gruelling training is as much about earning recognition for the sport as it is for themselves. Nina Daniels, at 25 the older of the two sisters, hopes qualifying for Beijing will put the sport in the spotlight.
"We were really pleased about it and it's really good for the sport as well. One of the reasons we wanted to make the team as well is to increase the awareness of synchro because I think a lot of people don't really understand the sport," she said.
"We'd like to see the sport really build and take off."
The sisters' passion for their "strange sport" developed as youngsters. Nina took up synchro when she was 11, younger sister Lisa, now 22, followed a short time later when she was 10.
They were members of national junior teams, began competing internationally as a duet in 2001 and have since attended four World Championships.
For the past three years the pair have been based periodically at a specialised synchro training centre in Toronto, where they live and breathe synchronised swimming.
After a short trip home to Dunedin recently, where they learned they had been selected by the New Zealand Olympic Committee to compete in Beijing, the Daniels sisters returned to Canada last week, where they are trained by former Canadian coach Sheilagh Croxon.
Nina said they plan to base themselves there right up until next year's Games.
"The facility we're at is really good - it has everything we need under one roof. It has a gym and all the sports medicine-type things as well. So it's really great, it means we can just stay there and get all our work done."
Since winning bronze at the Commonwealth Games last year, the Kiwi sisters have been steadily rising up the world rankings. They won the Oceania spot for Beijing at the Swiss Open in July, finishing three points clear of nearest rivals Australia.
But to be granted selection, they still had to prove to the NZOC they were capable of finishing in the top 16. They did so after finishing third at the Chinese Open in September with a high score of 88.083.
Despite their rapid improvement, Nina is realistic about their chances in Beijing.
She said they would be satisfied with a top 16 placing.
"We'd like to do even better than that and we're going to be working really hard from now until the Olympics making sure we have the best possible swims we can.
"At the World Champs in March we were 24th but since then we've improved significantly and our marks from China actually would have put us in about 14th place at a World Championships."
As soon as they learned of their selection Nina said they immediately started planning their Beijing campaign. It means a new routine and even more pool hours. While they receive some funding from Sparc, Nina says her parents have had to stump up a lot of cash to fund their training in Toronto.
"Mum and Dad have put in a huge amount of financial support and we definitely wouldn't be here if they weren't behind us 100 per cent."
