Chief Sports Writer Steven Baker has been talking to North-East athletes who will be heading across the Pennines in the hope of returning with medals from the Commonwealth Games which start in Manchester in two days time. With a fortnight of sporting excellence about to begin synchronised swimmer Gayle Adamson told him of her continual fight for funding.

GAYLE ADAMSON'S sporting life has been one long, hard battle.

A battle to stave off financial disaster as meagre grants and money from her parents keep her going.

A battle to get to the top in a fledgling activity that receives little support and even less recognition in Britain.

And, moreover, a battle to ignore the jibes and sniggers that are triggered by the mere mention of her sport.

"These days, I just tell people I'm a swimmer. If they ask me which strokes I do, I tell them I'm a synchronised swimmer," said Adamson, from Newcastle.

"When I do that, they say, 'That's not a sport.' It really hurts when you train so hard and you get criticised. People are too quick to criticise.

"Other athletes respect us because they know how much work we put into it."

The negative publicity that has dogged synchronised swimming since it became an Olympic sport in 1984 angers Adamson, a double bronze medallist in the last Commonwealth Games four years ago.

The stereotypes and preconceptions are wrong, she insists, and are held by people whose knowledge of the sport could be written on a skimpy swimming costume.

"Synchronised swimming hasn't got a good reputation because we're always smiling, we all wear make-up in the water and we wear nose pegs," she said.

"But if we didn't have the nose pegs, we'd drown. We spend so much time in the water that the water would get into our sinuses and do us a lot of harm if we didn't wear them.

"The judges are looking at our faces for signs of fatigue, which is marked down, so we smile to show we're not suffering from tiredness.

"Lots of people have a go at us but there are no tickets left for the synchronised swimming in Manchester, so people enjoy coming to watch us.

"When I started synchronised swimming when I was seven, I didn't know what people said about it.

"We are starting to get a bit more publicity now but there's not a lot of funding for the sport.

"I've got a bit of money from Sport England but the amount I've received has been in the £100s, not the £1,000s. You're told you'll get funding when you're successful - but without the funding, how do you get success?"

Adamson, 22, will compete in the solo event in Manchester on Saturday before she then takes part in the duets just 24 hours later.

She is confident of improving on her performance in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, and added: "England have always been in the top three since synchronised swimming was first in the Commonwealth Games.

"The Canadians are always the best and are favourites for the golds, but I don't see why I can't beat the Australians into second place."