In the Pool, a Thing of Beauty

For U.S. Synchronized Swimmers, It's Anything but Routine

BEIJING -- Inside the two-inch window of a video camera's screen a masterpiece comes to life. Women churn across water, arms swinging, legs flailing, first together, then apart in an aquatic form of controlled chaos. Music blares. Splashes everywhere. A swimmer bursts from the waves -- a blue torpedo rising high then dipping gracefully beneath the ripples.

And come Saturday, when Stephan Miermont's vision is transferred from tape to the Olympics, he is sure synchronized swimming will never be the same.

The head choreographer for the U.S. synchronized swimming team sees things others do not. He sees beauty in the streets. He sees movement in the air. "I love to create emotions," he says. "I love to make people cry."

He also likes to shock people. "I love to break the rules," he says. "I love to push the walls."

Miermont has come to Beijing expecting to break every rule and crush every norm of a staid sport that has long established what defines its rules and norms. Where the other teams will have their swimmers moving in unison for 80 percent of their routines, the Americans will stay together for maybe 30 percent. Otherwise they break off into small pockets of swimmers, each contorting themselves in such a way as to make a huge picture in the water.

When it is unveiled during the freestyle competition, Miermont just knows the crowd will stare in bewildered silence, mouths agape, then erupt into a roar never heard at a Olympic synchronized swimming competition.

"I don't really care about the score, we can't control that," he says. "What I want is a standing ovation. If all the people who come to watch and see are standing up then it will be a success."

Which in this sport can be hard to assess. Synchronized swimming has struggled to find its place in the Olympics after it was introduced in Los Angeles in 1984 as a test sport for duets and later expanded in Atlanta in 1996 to team competition. Mocked as nothing more than a water dancing show, it has survived to become the domain of the Russians, who overtook the United States during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Team competition is judged in two parts, each counting for half the score. First is the technical element, which has very strict rules and is something of a skills test. But during the more exciting freestyle event teams can border on the outlandish, as the French did in 1996, designing a routine depicting Jewish women being led to German concentration camps until wiser minds prevailed and the performance was changed.

Even though Miermont's innovation has been on display in the practice pool for several days and every other nation in the competition has stationed coaches in the stands to videotape it, he speaks of it as if it is a secret, hesitant to reveal its full splendor, almost sounding fearful of diminishing the effect. He considers his routine to be a story, one that evolves in several parts over four minutes.

Those who have watched are awed.

"I just ask Russia, 'What do you think of the routine?' " Miermont says delicately in a French accent that can sometimes create odd idioms. "She says, 'It's amazing.' "