We are a club that actively participates in artistic swimming competitions and encourage all athletes that train with us to work towards competing
Each year ASNZ allocates the responsibility of hosting the Regional Championships and the National Championships to one of the Artistic Swimming (AS) clubs within New Zealand. The National Championships are shared between North Island and South Island clubs - alternating the years between North Island and South Island. The calendar for competitions can be found here on the ASNZ website. ASNZ has developed a competition user manual to assist clubs in running competitions: ASNZ homepage
Competitions
The Regional Competition known as North Islands (for North Island clubs) or South Islands (for South Island clubs) takes place over the Kings Birthday Weekend. The National Championships takes place over the first week of the term three / October school holidays.
For athletes wanting to trial for national development and representative squads - these trials take place the day after Nationals. Preparation for squad trials takes place at the start of the training year. For information of squads follow this link: New Zealand Development Squads
Our club travels to the competitions and stays as a group at the competitions; this helps to build a strong bong within the club, and adds to the athletes experience.
The costs of travel and accommodation for coaches, the team managers, and the judges the club sends to competition is divided amongst each athlete attending competition. Our coaches, judges, or team manager are not paid an hourly rate at competition - they volunteer their time to participate. Paying their travel and accommodation is a thank you from club parents who do not travel to competition, or undertake additional roles within the club. This is a standard practice in all sporting clubs within New Zealand
Each athlete pays a entry cost for each event they enter; if Suzie Starfish enters in the Aquarina Figures competition, the Aqua Combo, an Aqua duet and an Aqua solo - this is four events - so four event entry fees.
At the National Championships there is usually an official photographer, hired by the hosting club. Each athlete pays an amount to cover these costs. Merchandise as a fundraiser for the hoast club, is offered for nationals only. The merchandise catalouge is available some time prior to the competition and is ordered through the club (see below). To save yearly competition costs, the Regional Competitions do not have an official photographer or merchandise. Most clubs will run poolside raffles.
Team Manager
Our club has an official role of Team Manager. Our Team Manager receives pre competition correspondence, assists with finding accommodation for the club at the competition location, assists with booking flights, and managing the merchandise that the host club sells as a fundraiser. The Team Manager is, as all adults travelling and staying with the team, police checked. The Team Manager deals with ensuring everyone flying with the group is present and accounted for and seamlessly travels from Wellington to our destination. The Team Manager ensures that transport from the airport to the accommodation and to the competition pool is booked, and arrives in a timely manner. If any of the athletes require medical attention whilst at competition, the Team Manager will arrange for this (the payment of the medical care is invoiced to the athletes family) and see that the treatment is undertaken. if any of the athletes have ongoing medications, such as asthma inhalers - the Team Manager ensures that the athlete manages their medication, or provides assistance if they are unable to do so. The Team Manager attends the morning briefing sessions - where the meet manager will lead a meeting informing changes, or alterations in the programme or an increase or alteration in volunteer requests.
Judges
World Aquatics Artistic Swimming has in 2023 revised and introduced a new set of rules and judging systems. It is more technical than previous judging systems. New Zealand has opted to accept these rules and operates competitions under these rules.
Competitions can appear to be quite judge heavy.
Each club is expected to provide one judge per six competing athletes. Each judge undertakes education prior to the competition; either a course, a training programme, practice judging at the pool, and a briefing meeting prior to the start of the competition, and during the competition - there is ongoing briefing sessions. Judging courses usually have an examination attached to the programme. Judges are impartial and unbiased. Judges use the World Aquatics judging scale, and judging programmes. There are Artistic Judges, Technical Controllers and Synchronicity Judges. The Technical Controllers (TC) ensure that the coaching cards that the coach submits - prior to the competition - containing alphanumerical codes representing each hybrid and acrobatic manoeuvre - is carried out by the athlete in the routine. The synchronisation judges record minor and major synchronisation deficits. The artistic judges, judge everything that isn’t a synchronisation or TC judges role - transitions, presentation, engagement by the athletes with the judges and spectators, etc. All of these judges form panels and judge the figures competitions as well. The routines scores are entered electronically, using a AS judging programme - and via paper as a back-up. For more information about judging please follow this link: ASNZ Judges and Officials
Volunteers
Our sport relies upon parent help to assist at all competitions. When comparing Artistic Swimming with other aquatic sports such as speed swimming, water polo, or underwater hockey all Artistic Swimming clubs within New Zealand are comparatively small. We ask for parents to assist with helping the competition to run smoothly. Some of the volunteer roles that we ask for is marshalling the athletes, videography, timekeeping, scoring, or data entry. All these roles allow the volunteer to have a poolside seat for the events that they have volunteered for. So you get the best seats in the house! Pre competition training / instruction is given to volunteers. All volunteer roles are easy to master. Volunteers, unfortunately do not have their travel or accommodation costs covered.
Athlete Volunteers
At each competition there is an opportunity for athletes to be a volunteer "runner". The runners role is to sit poolside, and collect the judging slips at the end of each routine and take them to the score keepers for data entry. Athletes are asked to be runners on days they aren't competing
Accommodation
We usually stay in a location close to the competition pool. If available, we opt to stay in boarding school accommodation, as this environment is well appointed for large groups. Other AS clubs may be staying at the same accommodation. If we can walk to the competition pool we will. If we require a taxi to do so - we will usually hire a taxi mini van. Some competition venues require a compromise in accommodation and a longer taxi ride. We usually arrange meals, including lunches, with accommodation, so it is important to gain dietary requirements prior to competition.
Merchandise
Each Nationals, the host club undertakes a relatively large fundraising project; this is merchandise. This helps to fund the competition and raise funds for the host club. The host club will provide a catalogue of merchandise / souvenirs of the competition for individuals to purchase. This usually comes out some months before the competition. To streamline the process for the host club, the ordering and bulk payment goes through the home club - with the individuals paying their home club. The merchandise is either sent to the home club in advance of the competition, or distributed at the competition via the Team Manager. The merchandise products usually have a pool theme, contains the logo of the competition, and name of the competition; a typical selection would be a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, towel, drink bottle, dry bag.
The Artie Shaw Trophy for Club Spirit
This trophy is awarded at each Nationals Championships. It is awarded by the current holder of the trophy to another club who shows outstanding club spirit, camaraderie and general all round helpfulness and being lovely. Wellington Synchro has been awarded this trophy three times (2010 was the previous Wellington synchro clubs victory) 2010, 2016, and 2023. There are many aspect to being awarded this cup: keeping your unhelpful comments to ones-self, cleaning up your seating area in the spectator stands, being friendly to other athletes, talking to other athletes, and cheering. Cheering at competitions is an event in itself. We encourage everyone to cheer for everyone; cheering for our club and other clubs enhance the synchro magic and promotes a special feeling about out NZ competitions.
For more information about competitions and past results follow this link https://synchroswimnz.org.nz/competitions-and-results ASNZ competition rules and results
