WHILE Scottish swimmers have been setting the heather on fire in recent years and attracting many headlines in the process, synchronised swimming in this country has been somewhat overlooked.

Scotland’s swimmers owe their high profile to winning Olympic, World and Commonwealth medals and while this country’s synchronised swimmers aren’t quite at that level yet, Chloe Burns is confident that the standard of her sport is steadily rising.

Earlier this month, Burns was awarded the title of Scottish Synchronised Swimmer of the Year and while it was a wholly unexpected accolade, she admits that the opportunity to rub shoulders with the great and the good of Scottish Swimming at the awards dinner was very welcome.

“It was amazing to receive the award but when I initially got the email telling me that I’d won, I thought it was a joke,” Burns laughs.

“There was a big, fancy dinner and it felt brilliant to get my trophy. And it was great to be there with all of the swimmers who’d been in Rio for the Olympics – I even got my photo taken with Hannah Miley, which was great. It was all pretty surreal actually. But getting an award like this really makes all of the hard work worth it.”

Becoming Synchronised Swimmer of the Year was a timely boost for Burns, who is a member of Clydebank Synchronised Swimming Club.

The Scottish Synchronised Swimming Championships take place this weekend at Drumchapel Swimming Pool in Glasgow and after competing in the seniors category for the first time last year, Burns, whose best event is the duet, believes that experience will stand her in good stead to put in a good performance this year.

Her previous experience hasn’t eliminated the nerves entirely, though.

“I’m feeling pretty good although I am still slightly nervous,” says the 23-year-old.

“In the last few weeks, we’ve been focusing on cleaning up our routines – concentrating on getting height and making everything really sharp, like you would in dancing. And making sure that the timing’s right because with duets, if your timing is even slightly off, it can look really bad.

“But I like that in duets, you can bounce off the other person and you keep each other going.”

Burns began her career as a swimmer but she soon got bored of relentlessly battering her way up and down a pool.

So, when the suggestion that she tried synchronised swimming was mooted, she jumped at the chance. Immediately, Burns fell in love with the sport.

“I think I like synchro so much because it’s such a range of disciplines,” she says. “I did dancing when I was younger and synchro is a mix between dancing and swimming. It’s very technical as well and I’m a perfectionist, so I really like that side of it. I think it fits my personality well.”

Despite swimming in Scotland receiving substantial funding, synchro receives very little support. Burns does not have the luxury of being a full-time athlete like many of Scotland’s swimmers and she admits that her busy schedule that involves working before dashing off to training can be draining.

However, leaving her job because of an impending move to England has given her the chance to train full-time for the past few months and she admits that the benefits of increased rest and recovery time have been invaluable with the Scottish Championships looming.

It is, she concedes, a grievance that her sport does not receive greater support.

“It really frustrates me that people don’t understand how tough a sport synchro is and how much we put into it,” she says.

“I think that lack of understanding is reflected by how much funding the sport as a whole gets, which is frustrating. England are doing a better job than we are up here at promoting the sport but we’re a lot smaller and we’ve only got a few clubs so it’s tough for us.

“It is improving now, though – a lot more people are entering the competitions and so we need to keep moving in that direction. But we need the funding behind us like other sports get to actually get anywhere.”

Burns believes that despite the lack of support, synchronised swimming in this country is slowly but surely progressing. The depth of top-level athletes has not always been there but she can see improvements, which is, of course, encouraging.

“The strength-in-depth isn’t there in Scotland yet – we’ve only just started to get better numbers very recently so there’s not loads of athletes competing at the top level just yet,” she says. “But for the girls who are coming through, I think it’ll be much better because there’s a lot of talent there.

“The younger girls are being challenged within their clubs as well as competing nationally because there’s so many more people doing synchro now, so I think that can only be a good thing for the sport.”