Katie Norris’s rockets are out of sight.
“You can see her height,” says synchronized swimming coach Heather Olson, ’99. She points to a video of the Stanford senior rising, feet first, from aquamarine waters at this year’s National Synchronized Swimming Championships. “Typically people can thrust out of the water to their waists, but Katie can get out to her armpits.”
Norris has spent 17 years perfecting dramatic moves—thrusts, boosts and twirls—and counting out the five-six-seven-eights that turn her aquatic flourishes into award-winning choreography. The aforementioned rockets are “kind of like jumping out of the water, upside down, very high,” the senior says. Synchronized swimming is “all about performance,” she adds. “You have to convey to the judges that you are the winner.”
Indeed, synchronized swimmers are expected to look flawless while competing in a sport that some have likened to running a marathon underwater. Tricks of the trade: using Knox gelatin to keep hair in place, dabbing Vaseline on front teeth to avoid smears of theatrical-grade lipstick, and dangling special speakers into the pool so athletes can keep time underwater.
With two Olympians and seven additional national team members, the Cardinal was a “stacked team” this season, according to Norris. The squad unseated powerhouse Ohio State at the collegiate championships in March for its first title since 1999. “It was so exciting to sweep every event,” says Norris, who was named Collegiate Athlete of the Year. Two months later, the Cardinal took second place in the team championships at the U.S. Nationals. Norris won the solo title and took home the Esther Williams Creative Achievement Award.
Although Williams may have popularized synchronized swimming, the 1940s Hollywood versions had little of the explosive athleticism that defines the emerging NCAA sport. Today’s collegiate swimmers have been practicing in duets and trios on club teams since they were 7 or 8 years old, and many come to the pool with experience in speed swimming and gymnastics. They will devote an hour to learning a 15-second figure, and out of the pool they cultivate flexibility by studying Pilates and develop upper-body strength with weights.
Judges, who often perch in lifeguard towers above the swimmers, look for tight patterns, sustained lifts, height, synchronization and pool coverage—“how much you’re traveling,” says Olson, a 1996 and 2000 Olympian and this year’s Collegiate Coach of the Year. Patterns are particularly challenging: “You have to be aware of each other, and that’s hard to do when you’re upside down and moving.”
