Egypt’s synchronised swimming team will officially be joining other athletes from the country linking northeast Africa with the Middle East for the 2020 Summer Olympics. After the well-deserved qualification, the team will be heading to Tokyo, where the event, officially known as the Games of the XXXII Olympiad, will be taking place from 24 July to 9 August 2020.
The team officially qualified for Tokyo 2020 after winning first place for Africa at the 2019 FINA World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, which took place from July 12 to 28. And needless to say, everyone is pumped about the artistic swimming team making the cut to the upcoming international multi-sport event.
According to Aldustoor, the impressive team did face some challenges along the way. “The final exams for the students ended three days before going to Korea to participate in the tournament, and we could not work out a preparation camp to focus our training,” revealed Iman Aram, a member of the Egyptian Swimming Federation and the synchronised swimming technical advisor and general coordinator.
“The judges stated that the level of the Egyptian team, who were participating for the first time this year, was similar to all other levels, and achieved 77.8 points, more than the team achieved in the previous year by about four points,” she said. Aram, who has requested that the Ministry of Higher Education give the team a free two-month period before the Olympics to ease their training schedule and achieve their full potential, also said there’s been a huge improvement.
In 2016, the Egyptian synchronised swimming team was in the limelight after finishing seventh overall with 155.5505 points at the Rio Olympic Games. In 2020, 10, rather than eight teams, will compete at the games. Just as before, the best five teams from each continent will have a spot, including the host country. While Japan will take up the Asia quota, the Oceania continental spot went to Australia. China, Ukraine and Russia are qualifiers too and the remaining spots will be awarded at the 2019 Pan American Games and 2020 Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
Interestingly enough, since Egypt’s debut in 1912, athletes from the nation that’s famous for its mighty Nile River and magnificent monuments have appeared in every edition of the Summer Olympic Games, except 1932 and 1980. During those years, they took part in a US-led boycott.
