BRANDON, Fla. — Mandy Walker of Riverview has been practicing nearly every day since November for a competition of a lifetime.
“I’m more of a sporty mermaid,” she said, sitting poolside at High 5, Inc. in Brandon.
WATCH: Tampa Bay woman competing in international Mermaid Olympics
Walker, also known as MerMandy, will make a splash in the Merlympics on Saturday in Wolfsburg, Germany.
“It’s an international mermaid competition for mermaid athletes,” Walker said. “We’re going to race, we’re going to compete, we’re going to have fun and take home gold medals.”
The Merlynpics allows merfolk to go fin to fin to test their swimming skills. She is part of the six-member Team USA.
They’ll be competing against 14 other countries in several different events such as the 50-meter breast stroke, a speed challenge, and a synchronized team performance.
“Mermaiding is generally depicted as a pretty, graceful entity where we are beautiful with long hair, posing underwater, performing for our friends, and splashing around,” she said. “This is an entirely different entity of mermaiding. This is a mermaid competition.”
To be a mermaid, the look requires the use of a mono-fin that binds your feet together to create the mermaid tail. The tail is then covered with a fabric known as the skin.
“There is a huge difference versus both legs,” Walker said. “The skin creates a lot of drag. It absorbs water. It slows you down. It’s trailing behind you. There is a lot of core strength, there is a lot of quad strength, and a lot of maneuvering to make sure you are flowing through the water efficiently.”
In addition to her training, Walker is a certified mermaid instructor and will soon have her Master’s degree in marine biology conservation.
She looks forward to this weekend’s competition and hopes to see more swimmers dive deep into mermaiding.
“I realized this was a thing. I could be a real mermaid! The dream kind of exploded.”
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