Western Australia’s strength in the field of Artistic Swimming has again been proved with the five of the eight swimmers selected for the Tokyo Olympics 2020 Artistic Swimming team coming from WA.
SynchroWA today announced that the WA athletes are returning Olympians Amber Rose Stackpole, Hannah Cross and Emily Rogers from the West Coast Splash Synchronised Swimming Club and Amie Thompson from SupaNova Synchronised Swimming Club.
Jane Fruzynski, also from the SupaNova Synchronised Swimming Club, will be making her Olympic debut. WA’s Hannah Burkhill from SupaNova has also been named the team reserve.
Joined by three Queensland athletes, the Artistic Swimming (formerly known as Synchronised Swimming) team will compete in the technical and free team events at the Olympic Games later this year. Amie Thompson and Rose Stackpole have been selected to represent Australia in the technical and free duet events.
SynchroWA Chairperson Nikki Eidne said she was delighted to see WA swimmers once again do so well in the Olympic selection trials.
“Western Australia really leads the nation in the development of international standard artistic swimmers,” she said.
“I congratulate these swimmers and I am so pleased to see their hard work and dedication pay off for them and I wish them the very best of luck in Tokyo.”
Mrs Eidne said Artistic Swimming – still exclusively for women at Olympic level – provided one of the biggest group of Olympic athletes of any sport in WA.
She said Artistic Swimming was continuing to grow in popularity and stature in WA among both males and female swimmers.
Eight WA members trialled for a place on the Artistic Swimming Olympic team with Alessandra Ho and Kazia Zenke from the SupaNova Synchronised Swimming Club narrowly missing a position on the team.
The Olympic team will be led by SynchroWA’s former State Coaching Director and High Performance coach Briana Preiss.
Mrs Eidne said SynchroWA’s successful High Performance Program is made possible with sponsorship from Hancock Prospecting, as well as collaboration with WAIS and the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries.
