ALEXANDRA Barnett is hoping she doesn’t make too much of a splash as she sets her sights on competing at the 2012 Olympics.

Ripples are okay but the calmer the water the better when it comes to synchronised swimming and the 26-year-old from Halliwell is currently one of the best in the business – a British champion in fact With her partner of just nine months, Alexandra capped an incredible year of success by winning the national championships at Gloucester – a success she equates to “winning the FA Cup”.

And, with the sport set to have its funding doubled in the build up to the London Olympics, there could be more success on its way as Britain finally starts to make an impact as a global force.

“We’re knocking on the door of getting into finals now,” Alexandra said, encouraged by the progress that began at this summer’s Olympics.

“The girls who went to Beijing surpassed all expectations, finishing 13th out of 28. Before that Britain were either not good enough to qualify or enter. But we’ll have automatic qualification for London, and with the double funding it’s getting very exciting.”

As in all sports, success only comes with dedication and for Alexandra that means four round trips per week to the West Midlands where she combines studying for a PhD in counselling psychology and training sessions at the Walsall club while working on placement at Wythenshawe Hospital.

But the new British champions are finally getting the rewards they have worked for since first becoming involved in the sport since their early schooldays.

Alexandra, who competed for the City of Bradford club before coming to Bolton two years ago, puts that down to true syncronicity with her partner Zoe Cooper, pictured, who is based in Shrewsbury Within weeks of teaming up, they won the German Master events then the Scottish Open before landing the national title earlier this month, when they swam their technical programme to Lou Bega’s Mambo Number Five and their free programme to music from the Cirque du Soleil.

Next year they will push on with various European tournaments and world masters events with their confidence sky high.

“We’ve known each other since we were about 11 but we only got together as a duet in March yet we get along so well,” Alexandra explained. “I’ve never swum with anyone who I’ve clicked so well with and we look very similar. It might sound odd, but that’s important in synchronised swimming. It’s to our advantage that we are the same size, have the same sized legs and the same coloured hair. It makes us look identical.

“It helped that we took ourselves off to a training camp in Cyprus earlier in the year but we’ve also had some brilliant coaching from Amy Baker at Walsall, who has been wonderful.

“We’ve both said that it’s been our dream since we were little to achieve what we achieved earlier this month. It is amazing that we’ve done it.

“Now we’ll be looking to push on next year with the hope of competing at London in 2012.”