Erika making winning figures in the pool

The odd things are sometimes the ones which make lasting figures on the heart.

Erika Loustric originally thought that artistic swimming was peculiar when she stumbled upon it seven years ago. But she has come a long way and now displays figures in the pool.

While seated in the stands at the Aquatic Centre, in Christ Church, the 16-year-old Harrison College student, who started in aquatics as a pool swimmer, recently told EASY that though the sport was unusual, there was something about it that won her heart.

“I’ve been a swimmer since I was very little. My whole family swam but then all of a sudden I saw that this team [Synchro Barbados] was here and it wasn’t very popular but something just clicked. I was doing ballet at the time as well, so it was kind of the idea of that combination of ballet and swimming and being able to put it together and I saw something amazing.

“I think it was the oddness of it. No one was doing it but you saw it on TV. It was these girls with their legs out of the water and I was like, how? I think the difficulty of it drew me. I like to do things that are very difficult and [because of] the idea of something so unusual I said, ‘let me give it a try and see if it works’, ” she said with bright eyes while mentally reliving her beginnings in the sport.

Not only did the sport win her heart, she won three gold medals at this year’s CARIFTA Aquatics Championships, two individual in the figures and solo competitions and another in the duet segment with her partner Samaiya Forde. (RG)

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