Olympics LIVE: Shock truth about this sport

To those who situation uncertainty the brutality of her sport, Australian creator swimmer Amie Thompson tells a story: About the time a teammate accidentally landed connected Thompson's face, breaking her chemoreceptor and filling the h2o with blood.

Focused arsenic they were connected preparing for the Rio Olympics successful 2016, nary of Thompson's teammates — including 1 who would caput to Rio with a breached toed — initially adjacent noticed.

"I took the day disconnected and was backmost successful the excavation the adjacent day," says Thompson, who is competing again this twelvemonth successful Tokyo.

Forget boxing oregon rugby. The astir hardcore athletics astatine the Tokyo Games whitethorn conscionable beryllium creator swimming.

Long misunderstood and maligned arsenic a frothy performative spectacle, the athletics erstwhile known arsenic synchronised swimming has rapidly evolved into 1 of the astir physically gruelling specialties astatine the Olympics, with athletes grooming up to 10 hours a day.

"It's decidedly the astir underappreciated diversion endowment successful sport, but I deliberation it's genuinely the astir demanding athletics that determination is successful the Olympic program," says Adam Andrasko, CEO of USA Artistic Swimming. "It's very, precise hard adjacent for high-level athletes to comprehend what it takes to beryllium an creator swimmer."

So what does it take? The spot and powerfulness of weightlifters, the velocity and lung capableness of region swimmers, the flexibility and accomplishment of gymnasts and the quality to execute successful cleanable sync with the euphony and each other. All portion making it look casual — and without ever touching the bottommost of the pool.

"Imagine sprinting all-out, portion underwater, chlorine successful your eyes, holding your enactment and trying to beryllium successful enactment with 7 of your different colleagues," says Kim Davis, president of Artistic Swimming Australia.

As for swimmers without cleanable vision? Sync oregon swim, baby. Unlike different swimming events astatine the Olympics, goggles are banned successful synchro. And due to the fact that creator swimmers are besides critiqued connected presumption and maintaining oculus interaction with the judges (which is wherefore they deterioration dense oculus constitution highlighting their expressions) they can't precisely aboveground from the h2o squinting and rubbing their eyes.

A fewer creator swimmers person recovered ways to get their interaction lenses to instrumentality successful spot portion underwater, which besides helps support their eyes from the chlorine burn. But successful general, they're flying — er, swimming — blind.

An expanding absorption successful caller years connected making the routines much hard successful a bid to people higher points has made the moves faster and the lifts higher, and has shrunk the region betwixt swimmers from a fewer feet to a fewer inches.

Amid each the flying limbs, kicks to the caput are common, and, consequently, truthful are concussions. At the elite level, each squad mostly deals with a mates of concussions a year, Davis says.

The frequence of concussions stunned Bill Moreau, who served arsenic vice president of sports medicine for the United States Olympic Committee from 2009 to 2019. During his tenure, helium attended a grooming campy for the U.S. creator swimming squad successful Colorado Springs. In conscionable 2 weeks, 50 per cent of the squad sustained a concussion, an incidence complaint that surpasses some U.S. and Australian rules shot concussion rates implicit a akin timespan, helium says.

"This athletics is overmuch much than the aesthetics that each of america tin spot supra the water," Moreau said by e-mail. "Under the h2o they are battling gravity to execute their routine. These swimmers genuinely are athletes, and they should beryllium receiving the aforesaid level of respect arsenic different sports that nutrient much gross and tv coverage."

The strength of the routines and the agelong stretches that swimmers indispensable clasp their enactment for has resulted successful immoderate athletes passing retired during performances.

Swimming's planetary governing body, FINA, present warns successful its judging manual that creator swimmers who clasp their breaths for much than 45 seconds hazard hypoxia.

Though the athletics focuses little connected enactment holding skills than it erstwhile did, swimmers inactive walk a important chunk of their performances beneath the surface. The Australian team, for example, is underwater for a full of 2 minutes and 20 seconds of their four-minute routine, Thompson says.

In June, US creator swimmer Anita Alvarez concisely mislaid consciousness astatine the extremity of her duet regular during the Olympic qualifier successful Barcelona.

After spotting the 24-year-old slipping beneath the surface, manager Andrea Fuentes yanked her disguise down and dove, afloat clothed, into the excavation to rescue her.

Alvarez, who has undergone a artillery of aesculapian tests since then, says she inactive doesn't cognize precisely wherefore she fainted that day. But she suspects it was a substance of carnal and affectional exhaustion, positive the circumstantial movements astatine the extremity of the routine.

Drained from the performance, acceptable to Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy," Alvarez and her spouse emerged from an underwater upside-down spin, past snapped their heads backmost successful a last flourish.

"It was a ace aggravated and stressful competition," says Alvarez, who volition vie successful the duet lawsuit successful Tokyo. The time earlier the fainting incident, she and her squad had missed qualifying for the squad lawsuit successful Tokyo by a slim 0.2 points.

She had hardly slept, and had conscionable had a drawstring of highly agelong days successful the pool. The escaped duet, which runs 3 and a fractional minutes, is besides 1 of their hardest routines.

But pushing their bodies to the bounds is each portion of the woody for creator swimmers, Alvarez says. Just see their emblematic grooming regimen, which involves an hr of spot grooming and stretching exercises connected land, followed by different 8 hours — oregon much — successful the water.

"Whenever anyone who doesn't cognize astir our athletics hears what our regular grooming is, they deliberation we're insane," Alvarez says. "Even different nonrecreational athletes deliberation we're insane. Just knowing what we bash successful a time unsocial is capable to spot however aggravated and truly hard it is."