Written by Maureen Croes, World
Aquatics correspondent
While a few medals were claimed by
previous Olympic, World Aquatics Championships or World Series medalists,
surprising results, strategically planned routines, and unpredictability of the
results remained front and centre on the first day of the World Aquatics
Artistic Swimming World Cup 2023 event in Montpellier, France.
In this Mediterranean city, known for
its rich culture and great climate, the Artistic Swimming Community is
witnessing the possibilities and opportunities for the exciting future of the
sport.
Like the first stop in Markham,
Canada, the proof that any athlete on any given day can be on the podium is in
today’s results.
Free Solo Women
The field of twenty-one experienced
and successful soloists competing for the hardware in the Free Solo included
the reigning World Champion Japan’s Yukiko Inui, World Champion silver medalist
Ukraine’s Marta Fiedina and World Championship finalist, Austria’s Vasiliki
Alexandri, the 2022 World Youth silver medalist, France’s Laelys Alavez, and
the Bronze medalist from Markham, Canada’s Audrey Lamothe.
Yukiko Inui claimed the gold medal by
scoring 389.3583 points for “OROCH I”, the choreography, swum to music by
Toshiyuki Matsumoto, that tells the story about the legendary giant snake with
eight heads. Inui’s degree of difficulty score was more than 5 points ahead of
her nearest competitor, silver medalist Vasiliki Alexandri from Austria.
However, compared to the same routine in Markham, Inui added almost seven
points in difficulty, improving her score with just over seventy points.
Alexandri with a score of 334.6709, won the silver medal for her new routine
“Sounds of Nature”. The routine allowed
Alexandri to showcase her athleticism and grace to music that uniquely used
human voices to imitate the sounds of nature.
Possibly today’s best example of
unpredictability and surprise was the bronze medal win by Slovakia’s Viktoria
Reichova. Reichova finished last in this event in Markham Canada with her
performance of “Dream of Love”. However, since Markham the entire choreography
was changed producing a change in the difficulty from 16.6500 to 24.2000.
Reichova’s Artistic Impression score may not have been highest in the ranking,
her almost flawless execution of her hybrids earned her the final spot on the
podium.
The new scoring system allows for
creativity, strategy, changes, and growth in the degree of difficulties of
routines, however the other side of the risk involved with changes in the
degree of difficulty was also on display in Montpellier. World Champion silver
medalist Ukraine’s Fiedina declared a very high degree of difficulty, 33.45
points, on her Coaches card. According
to the Technical Controllers, Fiedina was unable to execute what she
declared. Even though Fiedina’s Artistic
Impression score ranked second, the degree of difficulty and the execution
score resulted in a sixth-place finish.
Free Solo Men
In the Male Solo event, young Italian
Gabriele Minak was able to secure his first World medal. The routine” The
Rebirth” tells the story of Minak, who’s only participation in a World Aquatics
event was in 2019 at the Youth World Championships where he finished 11th in
the Mixed Duet event. In accordance with the theme of his choreography, Minak
was able to execute the declared score for difficulty, which was significantly
higher than the rest of the field, solidly to earn the gold medal.
Repeating the silver medal win from
Markham, Spain’s Fernando Diaz del Rio Soto was able to increase his score for
the routine “Elements” from 168.4000 to 193.2875 points. Colombian Gustavo
Sanchez performed his routine “The Passion of Christ” for the first time to
earn the bronze medal.
Technical Duet Women
With the changes in the scoring
system, also came changes in the requirements for a Technical routine. With the
2024 Olympic Games right around the corner, the participation of twenty-five
strong duets this weekend is a good indication that everyone is thinking about
qualifications for Paris.
2022 World Champions twin sisters
from China, Liuyi Wang and Qianyi Wang,
have been swimming together since they were about six years old. The
choreography is swum to elegant music that was created specifically for the
routine themed “Lotus”. In France, the pair demonstrated their twin connection
and their expertise and ability in the water and were awarded 285.4041 points
for the gold medal.
As could be seen earlier in the Solo
event, the Japanese Artistic Swimming Team clearly have been working on
increasing their declared degree of difficulties since Markham. This performance of the “Mysterious” choreography
moved Moe Higa, and Mashiro Yasunaga up one step on the podium to silver with
276.7250 points. Their difficulty score improved from 26.5 to just over 30
points.
Two of the Austrian triplet sisters
Anna-Maria and Eirini, claimed another medal for the Alexandri household, a
bronze for the debut of their “Karate” themed routine. The technically
difficult choreography consisted of hybrids having the maximum amount of time
underwater and the maximum number of movements to increase the base scores as
much as possible.
Technical Duet Mixed
Repeating as the gold medal winners
from the first stop of the World Cup were the Chinese duo Yiyao Zhang and Haoyu
Shi who performed “Unstoppable”, a choreography based upon characteristics of
both Asian and Western cultures. The pair improved their score from a few weeks
ago to 246.3042 points, which included bonus points for the placement of a
hybrid with the maximum number of movements and time underwater executed at the
end of the routine. The silver medal was
awarded to the World Championship silver medalists, Japanese brother and sister
Yotaro and Tomoka Sato who scored 244.5167 points for the routine swam to the
theme “Tarzan.” The bronze medal went to the Colombian duet, Jennifer Cerquera
Hatiusca and Gustavo Sanchez, who capitalized on the solid execution of their
“The Mystery of the Ocean” routine to claim the last spot on the podium with
212. 2958 points.
The competition continues Saturday
with the Technical Solo, Free Duet, and Technical Team events. The final day of
competition, Sunday, includes the Free Team, Free Mixed Duet, and Acrobatic
Routine. The ever-popular Gala event will be the closing event of the 2023
Montpellier Artistic Swimming World Cup.
All results are on the World Aquatics website, and can be viewed live on
World Aquatics YouTube.
What's to Come from Montpellier
Saturday, May 6th
9:00 CET Solo Technical Women and
Solo Technical Men
15:00 CET Duet Free Women
19:30 CET Team Technical
Sunday, May 7th
10:30 CET Team Free
14:30 CET Mixed Free Duet
17:15 CET Acrobatic Routine and Gala
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