A FARNHAM mum and Turtle Tots baby swim teacher dipped her toes into new waters as she competed at the London 2016 LEN European Masters Championships, alongside her team members from Rushmoor Synchro Swimming Club in the synchronised swimming free combination team category.

It has been almost 20 years since Rachel Davies, 42, last competed and she has been training hard since the start of 2016 when she challenged herself to relive her childhood sport and win the European Masters.

The owner of award-winning baby swim programme Turtle Tots Surrey, Rachel spends most of her days in the pool coaching babies and toddlers to build confidence in the water, but last week the focus was on her and her team mates as she used the final hours to perfect her technique ahead of the weekend when she competed in the London Olympic Pool.  

Rachel said: “I used to compete in synchronised swimming as a teenager but that was 20 years ago. When the opportunity came up to compete again, I jumped at it, after all I’ve been teaching babies to swim since 2008 so there hasn’t been a week when I haven’t been in a swimming pool. Water is in my blood and this was a personal challenge for me to revive my childhood passion and see what I can achieve.” 

Rachel, has also worked with the GB synchronised swimming team in the past as a lifestyle and performance coach.

“I have such strong, happy memories of being involved in synchro as a sport that I wanted to challenge myself again. It was the most amazing experience, it was such a good atmosphere all day. We got there around lunchtime to watch the duets - two girls from our group were competing and won gold” added Rachel.

The Rushmoor girls had some tough competition, competing against 21 other teams and were pleased when they were given seventh place.

Rachel, continued: “We were very happy with our performance, it was great fun and it went really well. Our ages actually averaged out to 38, whereas the other teams averaged out to around 30 years old, so we done pretty well.

“Synchronised swimming is great exercise and it just goes to show that you don’t have to be 18 and skinny to take part. It’s so good to get back out there again.”

She is already thinking about her next challenge as the National Masters in Rugby is just around the corner, followed by the Wild Masters in Budapest.