Canada sum up synchronised swimming

Veterans Claire Carver-Dias and Fanny Letourneau will represent the North American nation in the solo and duet synchro events on July 26 and 27.

At the Canadian Championships in May, Carver-Dias won the solo title and teamed with Letourneau for a fourth straight national duet crown.

“The competition is getting stronger across the Commonwealth, but we’ll still be the overwhelming favourites,” said Canadian coach Biz Price. “That will put a lot of pressure on Claire and Fanny.”

Price said the two will be showing off new programmes in Manchester as they try to keep the Canadian winning streak alive.

Australia, eager to expand their aquatic hegemony from the competition pool to diving and synchro, send Naomi Young and Ashleigh Rudder to Manchester.

Young, a primary school teacher in Sydney, was encouraged to take up swimming to help correct club feet and turned to synchro after seeing the sport from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

The sport joined the Commonwealth schedule two years later at Edinburgh.

Young will compete in the solo — in which the swimmer’s synchronisation with music is judged — and team up in duet with Rudder, who has been the Australian junior champion since 1999.

Gayle Adamson and Katie Hooper, both bronze medallists for England at Kuala Lumpur in 1998, are back for another crack at the Canadians.