After several years of hard work and dedication, the moment has arrived for the much-talked-about scoring system in artistic swimming to make its debut on the world stage.

In 2017, the FINA Innovation Committee started the process which resulted in the new scoring system with the goal to make the sport fairer for the athletes and more in alignment with other judged sports.

No longer will there be fifteen judges scoring three components of the routines, but instead, ten judges will rate artistic impression and execution components, each worth equal value.

The new system involves Coaches Score Cards, which contain the difficulty of each routine, and Technical Controllers, who check for errors and make deductions based on the severity of the flaws.  

Coaches, judges, and technical controllers have undergone extensive training during the past year and the excitement for the implementation can be felt on pool deck in Markham.

Competing in front of her home crowd, Canada’s Kenzie Priddell had this to say:

“The team is super excited to start the season and ready to show all our new routines! It’s a very special feeling to be performing in our home country and to feel the support and excitement from the Canadian crowd. The changes in the judging system are a big step forward for our sport. We have put a lot of hard work into adapting to the new system and we are proud to show our routines.”

Many of the world’s best athletes are among the more than two hundred athletes representing twenty-four countries that travelled to Canada to be part of this historical event. Reigning World Aquatics Champion in the Female Solo Technical and Free events, Japan’s Yukiko Inui is joined by the silver medalist, Ukraine’s Marta Fiedina. 

The Male Solo event is full of young talent with the presence of last year’s Super Final gold medalist, Spain’s Fernando Diaz del Rio Soto, the silver medalist, USA’s Kenneth Gaudet, and bronze medalist Kazakhstan’s Eduard Kim.  

They are joined by veteran Mixed Duet World Champion Italy’s Giorgio Minisini. In the Mixed Duet event, Minisini returns with his World Champion partner Lucrezia Ruggiero to compete for the top honors against several experienced and successful duos. Bronze medalists in Budapest, Chinese couple Yiyao Zhang and Haoyu Shi and Spain’s veteran Emma Garcia now paired with Fernando Diaz del Rio Soto will be in the mix for the hardware in Markham.

World Championships silver medalists in both the Technical and the Free Duet events in Budapest, Ukrainian twin sisters, Maryna and Vladyslava Aleksiiva are leading the more then fifteen talented duets competing for the medals this week. 

The Aleksiiva sisters will be facing Japanese sensation Moe Higa, the first Artistic Swimming athlete to win  medals at Youth, Junior and Senior World Championships, all in the same year who will be pairing with Mashiro Yasunaga.  

Adding to the excitement in this event is the presence of three other duos that have at least one member who finished in the top-10 at the World Aquatics Championships – Budapest 2022. Italy’s Linda Cerruti paired with Lucrezia Ruggiero, Israel’s Shelly Bobritsky paired with Ariel Nassee, USA’s Megumi Field paired with Calista Liu.

Besides the scoring system, the participation of up to two male artistic swimming athletes in the Team events for the Olympic Games has added to the excitement of the change in the sport. This will certainly be seen in the Acrobatic Routines event, which solely focuses on the acrobatic designs and will make these routines even more powerful and explosive. Canada, Japan, Spain, and the USA and are among the eight countries that entered in this event.

This exciting three days of artistic swimming competitions in Canada will start on Thursday, March 16^th with the Female and Male Solo Technical events followed by the Team Technical event.  Friday, March 17^th will feature the Technical Duet and Mixed Duet events, as well as the Male and Female Solo Free and Team Free events.

On the final day, Saturday March 18^th, the Free Duet and Mixed Duet will be contested with the fan-favourite Acrobatic routine closing out the competitive portion of the program. The closing will feature the spectacular Gala which has become a fun opportunity for the athletes to showcase their creativity.

This first edition of the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup 2023 will be followed by two more stops, Montpellier, France (May 5-7), Somabay, Egypt (May 13-15) with the Super Final scheduled to take place June 2^nd through the 4^th in Oviedo, Spain.

You can follow all the action from Markham via live stream globally here and all results will be posted here on the World Aquatics website.

A Little Behind-the-Scenes Preview of What's to Come