U.S. Team Third After Technical Swim

ATHENS, Greece – The U.S. duet captured the bronze medal last night … the U.S. Team hopes to put its claim on another medal tomorrow night.

The U.S. Team sits in third after swimming the technical program scoring a 97.167. They hold a slim lead over Spain who posted a 96.333. The duet was in a similar situation after their technical program and swam to bronze in the final. The team hopes to do the same.

“We had a great swim tonight,” said Kendra Zanotto. “We think our free program is a great routine and has a chance to get high scores if we perform well.”

The team swam the same technical routine at the Olympic Qualification Tournament in April in which they finished third, but head coach Chris Carver made some changes for the better.

“It was a very difficult program and we changed it (from the Qualifyer) to make it faster,” said Carver. “This was the quickest team out there. We had 26 pattern changes, and we are only required to have six to eight. We definitely took a risk, but it was worth it.”

Swimming for the U.S. was Alison Bartosik (Santa Clara, Calif.), Erin Dobratz (Clayton, Calif.), Becky Jasontek (Loveland, Ohio), Anna Kozlova (St. Petersburg, Russia), Sara Lowe (Desoto, Texas), Lauren McFall (Los Altos, Calif.), Stephanie Nesbitt (Riverside, Calif.), and Kendra Zanotto (Los Gatos, Calif.).

As in the duet competition, Russia sits in first after scoring a 99.333, while Japan is second at 98.333.

The synchronized swimming competition wraps up Friday with the team free finals.

Team Technical
1, Russia, 99.333. 2, Japan, 98.333. 3, United States, 97.167. 4, Spain, 96.333. 5, Canada, 95.167. 6, China, 94.167. 7, Italy, 93.667. 8, Greece, 92.500.

Flash Quotes:

Erin Dobratz:
On how she felt overall:
"People ask us about our scores, but they should really ask how it felt. You know is you had a bad swim and you can see when something is off even underwater. Tonight, I didn't see anything off and it felt good."

On not competing until the end:
"That has probably been the hardest part. We have seen other athletes come and go and we hadn't started yet.

On the Olympics:
It has been amazing to meet athletes from all the other sports who have the same goals and dreams as I do. It is unbelievable.