Enriqueta Moyano, one of the pioneers
“Like Esther Williams”
Enriqueta Moyano ends up in the water because a traumatologist tells her that orthopedic boots were not enough to improve her leg and spine problems, and even less with the girl’s height. “Let her try swimming!”.
“And since they threw me in the pool, I realized that water was my element. I felt free, agile, happy.” Enriqueta swam and competed especially in long-distance swimming until she discovered synchronized swimming at the age of 13.
It was 1962 and being a swimmer was not easy. Every day she had to take the streetcar and the bus to do up to three training sessions a day. When she got home at night “some female neighbours commented to my mother that spending so many hours in the pool in swimming trunks and surrounded by boys was cool”. Enriqueta recalls.
“And since they threw me in the pool, I realized that water was my element. I felt free, agile, happy.”
Ahead of her time
Beginnings of the synchro had the support of a series of sponsors (Damm, Pepsi Cola and the swimsuit brand Jantsen) to form the Drink Group. It was a group of girls who from 1963 to ‘65 trained in the Sant Jordi, in Montjuïc and later in Can Caralleu, in the facilities where the Kallypolis would be born, a reference club of synchronized swimming in our country.
The group was like a family. Everyone helped, fathers and boyfriends acting as drivers and carrying the material or mothers sewing the swimsuits that they inherited from one another. “I remember that the father of Lolita Arias of Poble Nou invented a pair of nose clips for his daughter that ended up being copied by all the teams in Europe”.
Champions like Núria Llacuna, María Rosa Julià, María José Bilbao -Spanish champion for 12 years- the sisters Gloria and Montse Batalla or Enriqueta Moyano herself, among others, are the pioneers of what was then known as “the Esther Williams thing”.
In those days there were no speakers in the water and the choreography had to be memorized without listening to the music. “We had a better sense of timing than a Swiss watch.”
Like many sportswomen of the time, they were girls ahead of their time. Total amateurs, they made time for their “water ballet” between work and studies.
When she left the pool, Enriqueta continued to break barriers. Once again, she was one of the first women – often the only one – to be a judge and referee in swimming, water polo, diving and synchronized swimming.
Currently, her entrepreneurial spirit and solidarity has led her to become president of GAMAR (Mutual Aid Group of Rehabilitated Alcoholics) of the Barceloneta Civic Center. GAMAR works to serve people affected by an addiction or vulnerable situation to improve their quality of life and help them overcome this stage.
