***Article Update as of October 30, 2020: 

 

 

In August 2020, Canadian Senior National Artistic Swimmer Sion Ormond retired from active competition.  In September 2020, "allegations of abuse and harassment from swimmers and people outside the program led to the shutdown of the senior national artistic swimming team's training centre, pending a review by an external firm". (CBC Sports, "Four swimmers with Artistic Swimming Canada break silence about allegedly toxic environment", October 19, 2020.)  In this referenced CBC article, Sion spoke of a training environment that had become completely 'unbearable'.  On October 30, 2020, the investigation into complaints of harassment was completed and results were published. A more complete summary of the situation can be found in the following CBC Sports article "Canada Artistic Swimming plans to 'rip off the band-aid' to create better environment", October 30, 2020. ***

 

How does a kid from Aurora, Ontario who hated sports end up competing at the highest levels in artistic swimming (formerly synchronized swimming)?  We caught up with Sion Ormond (pronounced “Shawn”), a 20-year-old Team Canada artistic swimmer to find out.

 

Is it true you hated sports until you found artistic swimming?

Absolutely! My family is really athletic; my mom is a triathlete, and they kept trying to find a sport I would do without crying (laughs). One day, there was this “try synchro” event in my town so I gave it a try and, guess what, no tears. In fact, I fell in love with it. I actually trained at York Synchro (York Artistic Swimming Club) until I was thirteen and had made the provincial team.

 

 

By then, I was one of the older girls in my local club and I knew I needed more accomplished athletes above me to keep me inspired so I switched to another club in Toronto that also became the home of Team Ontario.

 

 

And you made the national team around that time?

Yes, the summer after Grade 9.  For younger swimmers, the national teams are only in the summer and, in Canada, the team location moves around. That year it was in Toronto, which was great because it was local.  But, I have also been based out of Calgary and Montreal. The cool thing is the sport is such a tight community.  The team's local swimmers will billet those of us who aren't local.  It's definitely a big help when you’re far from home.

 

 

Who inspires you?

That’s easy; my parents. My dad is my role model because he has been a world-class water polo competitor for years and has competed at the Pan American Games several times.  I knew if he could do that then I could do that. My mom is my rock. She keeps me motivated and keeps me grounded by reminding me that I need to be happy in what I do.

 

What does it take to get to your level and compete?

The hardest thing was balancing training with school.  For example, I missed the last two months of Grade 11 so I could go to the Junior Worlds. My high school was very supportive and basically created a high-performance athlete program for me. This allowed me to get credit for some of my swimming and, with the help of some awesome teachers, I could keep up with my course work online.

 

The key is having strong time management skills, the ability to work independently and to take the initiative when you don’t understand something. Learning outside of a traditional classroom means you have to communicate really well with your teachers.

 

 

Tell me about a typical day.

So our competition season is from April to August. I take August off and spend the fall and winter preparing. A typical day training day is up at 7:30, grab a smoothie and walk to the stadium where we train. We start with some gentle warm-ups and then do dryland training, such as weights or running until we hit the pool at 9:30.

 

We run three different routines at a time so we spend three hours on one routine in the morning and three hours on another routine in the afternoon. We take two hours in between for lunch and recovery, so I get out of the pool at about 6:00 in the evening.

 

 

What support do you have, in addition to coaching?

We are lucky to have a nutritionist on the team who can help us figure out how to eat properly and we work with a sports psychologist both as a group and in one-on-one sessions. This is really helpful for creating resilience strategies that get you through the challenging days and remind you why you love doing your sport.

 

What’s the dynamic on the team like?

At first, we struggled a bit because most of us didn’t know each other and we were from different parts of the country so we had not trained and competed together. We had also come up the ranks with different styles of coaching. The older girls had been trained with more rules and discipline whereas the younger girls had been motivated with more fun in their practices.

 

That’s one place where having a team psychologist available really helped. We were able to find that balance of work ethic and fun and we’ve divided up various roles on the team. The oldest girl is the captain because she has the most competition experience. Other roles include makeup and uniforms and our “spirit leader” who keeps our mood up and organizes team-bonding events.

 

 

What's your role on the team?

I’m the Activation Leader so I make sure everyone has something to do when we are at the pool.

 

What was it like to compete at the Artistic World Swimming Series in Beijing?

 I missed a lot of training due to a concussion, but I got to compete in one event and earned a silver medal, which I’m really proud of. But I’m also so proud of us as a team. Every competition we scored higher and higher and became much closer, which also helped our performance.

 

You’ve competed now in Greece, USA, Japan, Russia and elsewhere. What’s next?

COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into upcoming competitions.

 

Canada Artistic Swimming communicated a response plan to address the competition landscape in the evolving situation related to the attempt to contain the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19. Consistent with the health and safety guidelines being implemented across Canada, and with new directives from the Ontario government, the decision was taken to cancel the 2020 National Qualifier competition scheduled to be held this week in Markham, Ontario, March 24-28, 2020.  There's a contingency plan being constructed to address the Canadian Championships scheduled for Quebec City in early May.  

 

Upcoming competitions for the remainder of the season including the 2020 Canadian Championships and FINA World Series Super Final are listed on the  Canada Artistic Swimming Event Calender but may change depending on the progression of this pandemic. Check the calendar regularly for future competition event changes and news.

Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics were officially postponed until 2021 on March 24, 2020.  "We are immensely proud of our national team, first in qualifying the team and duet for the 2020 Games, and in the work they had done with our coaching team to prepare for this competition season" states Canada Artistic Swimming in their statement about IOC's decision. 

What is your mantra?

When life gets hard, I remember that good things are coming, and it’s important to take things one step at a time.

 

Final question: After hating all those other sports, what do you love about artistic swimming?

Well, I love the water, which pretty much is a given for an artistic swimmer. But the thing I love most is the team. We’ve become super close and it’s a pretty good deal when you get to travel the world with your best friends.

 

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