Features

Team Phoenix coached the Cosmo Dolphins team which participated at SA Nationals Age Groups in East London. The team of 16 athletes competed in 12 Events, winning 11 Gold with 4 Silver and 1 Bronze. Cosmo Dolphins additionally won the Top Novice Club Trophy. A truly remarkable result and a credit to our coaches Moipone, Chrissie, Tazz, Lemieka, Katelin, Vicky and Xixi. 

The entire South African Competition Team consisted of Team Phoenix Athletes. Lead by Head Coach Vicky, the Duet pair of Laura Strugnell and Jess Hayes-Hill, reserve Kaitlyn Doms and Soloist Skye MacDonald were selected for the team. Kaitlyn did not travel due to university commitments. The trio of athletes returned the Best Ever results for SA Artistic Swimming at a World Championships.

Team Phoenix coaches wanted to attend an international competition where the new rules would be in place before World Champs. Supporting our Northern Neighbours with their first World Cup was the perfect opportunity and we arranged for our Solo and Duet champions to attend. Unfortunately due to financial constraints our Duet of Laura Strugnell and Jess Hayes-Hill were not able to travel which left Skye Macdonald to swim her solos and gather some intel on how the new rules were being implemented and what we needed to learn for Fukuoka later in the year.

The CGA team coached by Team Phoenix entered 6 athletes in the competition held in Cape Town from 2 to 6 April 2023. Our athletes competed across 3 age categories: 12&U, Youth and Senior in 8 events. Achieving 6 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze. Additionally winning the Trophy for Top Solo Score, Top Duet Score, Top Routine Score and Top Level 3 Swimmer.

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Cosmo Dolphins club, coached by Team Phoenix, entered 6 athletes ( 3 Junior and 3 Senior) in 7 events. With Medals in every event comprising 4 Gold, 1 Silver and 2 Bronze, our athletes produced stand out performances from Novice to Senior.

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Team Phoenix Athletes Laura Strugnell  - Technical Solo and Mixed Duet and Ayrton Sweeney - Mixed Duet  are in Budapest representing South Africa at the FINA World Championships.

Catchup on the news, pictures and videos from the competition

A total of 9 Team Phoenix athletes from 4 provinces took part in the recent SA Nationals held in Durban from 8 to 10 April.  Team Phoenix choreographed, coached and trained routines and figures for 7 of these athletes. 5 Gold and 2 Silver medals was testament to the hard work put in by the athletes and the difference that Team Phoenix can make. Read all about it.

8 weeks was all we had to put together SA's first Mixed Duet. How did it start and why did one of SA's top international male swimmers take on the challenge of Artistic Swimming?  We tell the story of how the duet was choreographed, how the athletes were trained and how Laura and Ayrton nailed it to qualify for World Champs.

The story of the SA Olympic Duet, how it came about, how Team Phoenix was born and how we won the trials. We had numerous obstacles to overcome, some placed in our way, others a product of circumstance. We will share the gruelling training for Tokyo and finally the competition swims and exceeding our goal - with a few pictures to help tell the story. There is just too much for a website so we are Publishing this story in a Book to be released in 2024! Again but Better, We can do Hard Things! The True Story of the 2021 SA Olympic Duet