Artistic swimming replaces synchro in England as sport aligns with FINA

Synchronised swimming in England is getting a new name ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

In line with world governing body FINA, the sport will now be known as artistic swimming.

The change is being introduced in a bid to capitalise on the expected interest that will surround artistic swimming during this summer’s Olympic Games.

Artistic swimming will now be used in all of Swim England’s communications about the sport, while the discipline website has changed to swimming.org/artistic-swimming.

All Swim England competitions from the National Championships, which takes place in April, will also be known as artistic swimming rather than synchro.

Clubs across England are being encouraged to follow Swim England’s suit and change the name of the sport to artistic swimming in all marketing, communications and branding by January 2021.

Maria Ramos, chairperson of the Swim England Artistic Swimming Leadership Team, said: “FINA has called the sport artistic swimming since 2017 and with the Olympics coming up, we feel it is the ideal time to align.

Inspired by Tokyo 2020

“Many people will be inspired when they see artistic swimming during Tokyo 2020 and we want to ensure we can direct potential new swimmers to our clubs when they search without the confusion of using both synchronised swimming and artistic swimming terms.

“We appreciate the impact the change could have on our clubs, especially for those with synchro in their club name.

“We are not putting any pressure on them to change names to artistic swimming. However, we would urge clubs to seriously consider using artistic swimming in the long-term.

“There will also be a new Swim England Artistic Swimming logo, which will be used on all of our printed communications, once existing stocks have been used up.”

The changes have already been introduced across Swim England’s website, although some historical references to synchro or synchronised swimming may still appear.

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