Press Release

Synchro Pair Look Promising In Rome

1 June 2008

Britain's Beijing-bound synchronised swimming pair Jenna Randall and Olivia Allison continued their momentum towards their first Olympics with a strong performance at the Rome Open.

The pair competed this weekend with the aim of going ahead of their closest rivals Mexico and Kazakhstan. Randall and Allison competed well in the free competition on Friday and finished in 10th place with a score of 86.800.

The technical routine showed a small drop for the British pair and they finished in 11th place with a total score of 86.100 and going into the final the girls had to put any fatigue they may have been feeling to one side to come out and show how much they have improved in the past year.

Randall and Allison took to the final and performed confidently to show improved height on their boosts and speed through the water.

They scored highly to take an overall score of 86.600 to take 10th place, finishing just behind Mexico and ahead of Kazakhstan and National Performance Director Biz Price was pleased with the progress the girls have made.

"I was happy with the duet's performance here this weekend," Price said. "We beat Kazakhstan and finished just 0.1 points behind Mexico which is very promising. Obviously, in our next competition we will be looking to go ahead of Mexico.

"I made a lot of changes to the routines for this competition to take the girls to the next level and they performed quite consistently and did a very credible job with the new routines.

"The judges said they had noticed big improvements since both Europeans and the Olympic qualifiers and rated them in the higher category which I am very pleased with. No-one commented on the girls looking fatigued which I know they were but it shows me that they can pick themselves up for competition.

"We are now going to go back to continue to work on getting more power, height and stability in the routine which I believe will get us the higher marks."