Synchronized swimming in the context of 2022 European Aquatics Championships

The Royal Dutch Swimming Federation (Dutch: Koninklijke Nederlandse Zwem Bond, “KNZB”) is the official governing body for swimming, in the Netherlands. The federation overlooks several other sports including competition swimming, open water swimming, water polo, diving and synchronized swimming. The federation is based in Nieuwegein and affiliated with the national sports body NOC*NSF. The responsibility of the KNZB is to organize and track various events. When a new organization from one of the water sports joins the KNZB they can participate in the competitions governed by the KNZB. They will then be placed on a ranking list.

An Olympic-size swimming pool is a swimming pool which conforms to the regulations for length, breadth, and depth made by World Aquatics (formerly FINA) for swimming at the Summer Olympics and the swimming events at the World Aquatics Championships. Different size regulations apply for other pool-based events, such as diving, synchronized swimming, and water polo. Less onerous breadth and depth regulations exist for lesser swimming competitions, but any "long course" event requires a course length of 50 metres (164 ft 0.5 in), as distinct from "short course" which applies to competitions in pools that are 25 metres (82 ft 0 in) in length (or 75 feet (22.9 m) in the United States). If touch pads are used in competition, then the distance is relative to the touch pads at either end of the course, so that the pool itself is generally oversized to allow for the width of the pads.

An Olympic-size swimming pool is used as a colloquial unit of volume, to make approximate comparisons to similarly sized objects or volumes. It is not a specific definition, as there is no maximum limit on the depth of an Olympic pool. The value has an order of magnitude of 1 megaliter (ML). Some style guides caution against the hyperbole of describing any relatively large pool as "Olympic-size[d]".

Water sports or aquatic sports are sports activities conducted on waterbodies and can be categorized according to the degree of immersion by the participants.

Degree of difficulty (DD, sometimes called tariff or grade) is a rating used in several sports and other competitions to indicate the technical difficulty of a skill, performance, or course, often as a factor in scoring. Sports which incorporate a degree of difficulty in scoring include bouldering, cross-country skiing, diving, equestrianism, figure skating, freestyle skiing, gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, surfing, synchronized swimming and trampoline. Degree of difficulty is typically intended to be an objective measure, in sports whose scoring may also rely on subjective judgments of performance.

The World Aquatics Athletes of the Year (formerly FINA Athletes of the Year) is a set of awards presented by World Aquatics (International Swimming Federation) and the FINA Aquatics World Magazine. Each recognises excellence in five categories of aquatic sports: swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, water polo and open water swimming. The award was inaugurated in 2010.

Hamad Aquatic Centre is a large swimming pool complex in Doha, Qatar. The centre is housed in the Doha Sports City complex along with other buildings dedicated to sports in Qatar including the Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum, the Aspire Tower, Khalifa International Stadium, and a training school called Aspire Academy. It is three stories tall and is equipped to host events in swimming, synchronized swimming, and diving.

Synchronized swimming competitions at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing took place from August 18 to August 23, at the Beijing National Aquatics Center in China.

Synchronized swimming competitions at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London were held from Sunday 5 August to Friday 10 August, at the London Aquatics Centre. Two medal events were included in the programme — women's duet and women's team — with 100 athletes participating.

A split (commonly referred to as splits or the splits) is a physical position in which the legs are in line with each other and extended in opposite directions. Splits are commonly performed in various athletic activities, including dance, figure skating, gymnastics, contortionism, synchronized swimming, cheerleading, martial arts, hockey goaltender, aerial arts and yoga as exercise, where a front split is named Hanumanasana and a side split is named Samakonasana. A person who has assumed a split position is said to be "in a split", or "doing the splits", or "doing a split" (this form is especially encountered in the Eastern United States).

When executing a split, the lines defined by the inner thighs of the legs form an angle of approximately 180 degrees. This large angle significantly stretches, and thus demonstrates excellent flexibility of, the hamstring and iliopsoas muscles. Consequently, splits are often used as a stretching exercise to warm up and enhance the flexibility of leg muscles. A split that goes beyond 180° is called an oversplit.