In 1912, Katharine Curtis (nee Whitney) became the first woman to swim across Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. Under the headline “Madison has a youthful Annette Kellerman,” a local newspaper compared Curtis to the endurance-swimmer-turned-vaudeville-star who had become a household name for her role in revolutionizing women’s swimwear.

Esther Williams is often mistakenly credited with introducing synchronized swimming to the world. Though she did a lot to popularize synchronized swimming while it was still a developing sport, she did not invent it.

The United States, where competitive synchronized swimming was born, once completely dominated the sport. But over the past decade and a half, America has fallen far behind in international rankings, failing to send a team to Rio this year or to the London Games in 2012. The short reason? Not enough athletes. The long reason? It’s complicated.

The Coen brother's newest film, Hail, Caesar! channels the glamour of the Golden-era "aquamusical," the splashy, pool-centric musical genre made popular by Esther Williams in the 1940s and early 1950s. Now a kitschy remnant of a bygone era, the aquamusical was spectacularly successful during its midcentury heyday when Esther Williams starred in more than twenty water-themed MGM films and became one of the top actresses in Hollywood.

Most people think of synchronized swimming, which gained Olympic status in 1984, as a newcomer sport that dates back only as far as Esther Williams' midcentury movies. But the aquatic precursors of synchronized swimming are nearly as old as the Olympics themselves.

They slice past one another’s bodies, their sequined costumes reflecting sparkles of light in a thousand directions. He catches her foot and swings her, in a curved arc, around his body. There is a passionate pursuit, with grabbing and fleeing, a feigned strike to the face and a fleeting but exultant embrace. Like embattled lovers, their movements harmonize one moment and clash in discordant turbulence the next—and the audience loves it. This is not figure skating, nor is it ballet or even a tan

Shirley Monce was singing on radio before there was TV. Jeanne Carlson was a computer programmer when computers were so big a grown man could fit inside and few women had jobs outside the home, let alone careers. Between the two of them, they have more than 100 years of synchronized swimming experience.

The moderator gives us a nod, and we walk in unison along the edge of the deep end. “Aaaaaand stop!” comes a call from the rear. We pivot to face the pool and bend and stretch into formation, surrounding our seven-person clump with a sunburst of jazz hands. I feel hundreds of eyes watching us as we wait for the music, smiling in our silver-and-pink swimsuits and glittery eyeliner.

While the fact that men can synch seemed to be news to much of the world when Bill May and Christina Jones won the gold in Kazan, Russia this summer, that came as no surprise to those within the synchronized swimming community.

After retiring from the Opera Society of Washington—where she sang soprano for 15 years—Ireland, now 71, joined the DC SynchroMasters, a synchronized-swimming team, and took her artistry from the stage to the water.

This summer at the 2015 FINA World Masters Championships in Kazan, Russia, Nancy Hunt Weiman of the DC Synchromasters scored first place in the solo event for the 60-69 age group, making this her 39th world championship medal, including 23 gold.

At the 2015 USA Synchro Masters Championships, the Ramapo Aqua Masters realized there was something extra special about their six team members who had traveled to the Grand Rapids meet: They were each born in a different decade, with their birth years spanning six consecutive decades from the roaring '20s to the groovy '70s.