Despite a recent rule change allowing male athletes, no country has included a man in its Olympic artistic swimming team for the Paris games, including Team USA. The 8 women team was named in June. "Now we're working harder and harder to talk about the next stage of being the best you can be," said Andrea Fuentes, the team's coach.
This is the first Olympic experience for many of them, as Team USA hasn't qualified a group for the games in more than a decade. "In 2008, I was four. I hadn't started synchro yet until four years later," said Keana Hunter, a first-time Olympian.
The entire team relocated to Los Angeles for the last year, where the sun became their first opponent. "We actually use baby butt cream. So kind of weird.
I don't know who found it at first, but it has a ton of zinc oxide in it and that will physically block out the sun instead of just letting it come through like most sunscreens," said Hunter. The team trains for 10 hours a day, with eight of those hours spent in the water. "You're upside down in the water looking at your pattern and making sure you're in the right spot.
But you're also traveling. So everything has to come together to make it this beautiful routine. But there's so many pieces that take hours and hours to fix," Hunter explained.
"Got to come up, got to look like I didn't get kicked in the face, or I have to hold my breath super long. You just have to look like you're ready for anything," said Hunter. The artistic part of the sport is as ch.