SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING U.S. OLYMPIC TRIALS : Fans Still Not Getting the Picture

Part of the problem that synchronized swimming has in earning respect as a sport is that spectators see only the ballet-like movements that are demonstrated above the water. Beneath the surface, these athletes put their bodies through a rigorous workout.

Betty Watanabe, continuing in her never-ending quest to popularize the sport, asked sports photographer Ken Levine to capture on film the athleticism exhibited underwater.

The only problem was that Levine couldn’t hold his breath long enough. “By the time he got in position and got the camera focused, he needed air,” said Watanabe, director of U.S. Synchronized Swimming.

Levine rented an oxygen tank and, with a new underwater camera, tried again during a demonstration several swimmers gave at the Amateur Athletics Foundation’s Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena, where the U.S. Olympic Trials began Thursday with the figures competition.

But the only moment captured this time was by the spectators, who saw Levine and his tank bobbing up and down in the water. When Levine finally submerged himself in the 17 feet of water, he realized that he had another problem--he couldn’t move fast enough to keep up with the swimmers, who move throughout the pool during their routines.

“This was the classic case of the fat guy that can’t sink,” Levine said. “But I can tell you that this experience has made me a convert of the sport.”

Personal testimonies of synchronized swimming converts such as Levine slowly are helping to change the sport’s image. After Ed Sprague, a baseball player in the Toronto Blue Jay organization, met three-time national champion Kristen Babb--who since has become Babb-Sprague--he decided that his wife works harder at her sport than he does at his. “I spend so much time standing around and she is always working,” he said.

Babb-Sprague, a soloist who is ranked second in the world, has also done her part to help the sport. The 22-year-old from Walnut Creek has been a featured model for both Speedo and McCalls.

“The glamour part of the sport unfortunately has to be there,” Babb-Sprague said. “It’s unfortunate because people associate glamour with our ability to perform, i.e., like showgirls, rather than athletes.”

Babb-Sprague is the favorite to make the Olympic team, which will include one soloist and one duet. Today in the preliminary competition, she will debut a routine set to Western-style music, a stark departure from the traditional, classic style with which she has become linked.

“This is who I am,” she said. “I’m funny, I provide comic relief to my teammates. That classical image is not at all who I am and I got tired of trying to be this person I wasn’t. Everybody likes me as a comic, so I said, ‘Why not be me?’ ”