Artistic swimming requires tremendous cardiovascular endurance, flexibility and strength, as well as coordination, creativity, and balance. It is a well-rounded sport to promote overall physical fitness.

The benefits of training in our sport extend beyond physical fitness. The athletes form close friendships with their team-mates, and more senior athletes are excellent role models for younger athletes. Athletes improve at their own pace, but only through regular effort, discipline, hard work, and professionalism – all transferable attributes. Our coaches help each athlete to set and achieve realistic goals, leading to the development of confidence in and out of the pool. And if you ask the athletes, artistic swimming is FUN!

Our highly qualified coaches follow the principles of Long Term Athlete Development in order to nurture the best in your swimmer in a safe and enjoyable environment. We offer competitive programs where athletes can achieve their full potential through competition at local, regional, and/or national levels.

Artistic swimming is judged using the same standards for Olympic athlete and a first year “10 & under”. The mark range for figures and routines is 0-10. Although in school a “5” would be a pass, in artistic swimming anything higher than a “3.5” is considered a passing mark. Athlete’s marks slowly improve through their artistic swimming career but comparing marks from meet to meet is very difficult as judges can be different and even the optional figures are often different. The coaches put far more emphasis on how the figure/routine is performed by the athlete, than the marks they receive.

In routines there are three components given marks – execution (how the routine is performed including synchronization), artistic impression (choreography, manner of presentation, and music interpretation), and difficulty. Each one of these components is weighted differently i.e. execution can be worth 40% of the final routine mark in 11&12 routines but worth 30% of the final routine mark in 13-15.

The routine mark and the figure score are added together to give the championship score. The championship score determines who has won the event. This is why coaches place the same type of emphasis on training figures as they put on routines.

The age assignment of artistic swimmers in Manitoba is consistent with Canada Artistic Swimming rules which, in turn, follow the rules of the international organization for artistic swimming, Fédération internationale de natation (FINA, which in English means International Swimming Federation). So, for example, according to FINA rules, a swimmer would be considered to be “11” during the 2021-22 competition year, if they turn 11 anytime during the 2022 calendar year. The advantage of Manitoba following FINA rules is that our swimmers will not have to change competition age categories if/when they begin to compete at national and international levels. An added advantage is that athletes in the same grade at school will be the same “artistic swimming age”.

In the 2022-23 competition year, the birth years of the athletes should be as follows:

• “10 & Under” athletes were born in 2013 or later.
• “11- 12” athletes were born 2011, 2012
• “13-15” athletes were born 2008, 2009, 2010
• “16-20” provincial stream athletes were born 2003 – 2007

Actual teams will be determined by our Head Coach in September based on registration numbers, age group and ability. Please register for your correct age group.