It has taken years of sculling and submerged backwards rotations to perfect the sort of slap that can withstand even the toughest test. And if you ask me the reduction of time lost to the fairer sex through that tedious charade that is the application of make-up could well leave us with enough time on our hands to go out and change this goddam world after all - or at least complain a little bit.

It's made a serious contribution to the fight for equality, this synchronised swimming lark, you know. First waterproof make-up, then watertight body hair removal strategies. Soon all of those little worries that keep us girls tied up for so long in the bathroom will be a thing of the past. Watch out boys, we're rouged, we're hairless, and we're able to float in a starfish shape.

So, scoff if you like at the perma-smiles and the plastic-flowered hair-pieces, these wet women are our sisters. They are leading the revolution - and they are doing it in a very orderly, attractive formation. - Anthea McTeirnan

Be honest. When they come up like a missile from the depths of the swimming pool, smiles pasted to their faces, your first urge is to pull the trigger like at the duck shoot at the fairground. Bang. Off they go again, sideways this time. Underwater theatre for women (where are all the blokes?), mucking around holding their breath. and somersaulting like astronauts in zero gravity up the deep end.

Synchronised swimming is one of the great armchair curiosities. You watch it when there is no swimming or diving in the first week. You thrill at the weaker nations, who cannot get their high-kicking chorusgirl lines of legs moving at the same time. They fall down like dominoes with their frozen, half-fearful expressions and disappear with great gulps of air and, wow, the water resistant make-up they have these days.

To fathom how Juan Samaranch let this one into the Olympics is to understand a man who allegedly presides over a corrupt organisation. Television - correction - American television often determines these things and having signed up with NBC for the next 1,000 years, the IOC give us synchronised swimming.

What does it require? Big lungs. Big smiles. A couple of lessons in chorus line choreography. Hey, you too could be a Synchro star. - Johnny Watterson