After three very successful, exciting, and surprising days, it is a wrap in Markham, Canada. The best of the world’s elite and future Artistic Swimming athletes gathered this week at the Markham Pan Am Centre to be part of history as they competed and were judged under the new scoring system, which has been developed to ensure the fairest and most objective scoring for all competitors.
The changes, initiated by the Innovation Committee in 2017, have provided the Artistic Swimming community with a view into what the progression of the sport will look like.
The final three sets of medals that were up for grabs on day three. Comparable to the first two days, results were unpredictable until the end, which added to the competition's intensity and suspense.
Mixed Duet Free
Junior World 2022 Mixed Duet Free silver medalists Maria Bofill Strub and Dennis Gonzalez Boneu of Spain impressed the judges with their performance of “Angels and Demons” swum to music by Hans Zimmer and Nick Glennie-Smith.
Scoring 227.7876 points, the couple – who have been swimming together since they were twelve – occupied the top of the podium to give Spain its fifth medal in Canada. Earlier this week, Gonzalez Boneu won the Solo Technical and finished second with partner Judith Calvo Requena in the Mixed Duet Technical.
“This was our best moment in Canada. We had a very powerful swim today; we enjoyed swimming this. We will be training for the next World Cups and the Super Final in Spain.”
After a period of absence from international competition, veteran Canadian competitors Isabelle Blanchet Rampling and Rene Robert Prevost returned in Markham. Receiving great support from the home crowd, the Canadians scored 206.1208 points to finish second and add another silver medal to Canada’s medal tally.
Although the routine from Spain’s Mireia Hernandez Luna and Fernando Diaz del Rio Soto, swimming to music from the original soundtrack of “Beauty and the Beast”, scored 194.5083 points for the third place, only one medal per country per event is awarded. Therefore, Belgium won its second medal at this meet, another bronze, with Renaud Barral's and Lisa Ingenito's performances. The duo, which has only been swimming together in competition for one year, received 172.3793 points for the “Manga & Anime” themed choreography.
Both Barral and Ingenito were pleased with their result, with Barral saying:
“The synchronization felt very good, under water it looked good, we were able to connect well all the way through. It has been two of the three challenging weeks mentally for us to get ready for this. We will be competing at the second stop in Montpellier, France.”
Duet Free
The newly formed Italian duet of Linda Cerruti and Lucrezia Ruggiero convincingly won the gold medal by scoring 321.2667 points for their routine “The Storm.” Although the pair have only been competing together this year, they are both very experienced and successful elite athletes. Cerruti finished just off the podium at the World Aquatics Championships - Budapest 2022 in this event, while Ruggiero, with Mixed Duet partner Minisini, is the reigning world champion in both the Mixed Duet events.
“We are happy; it is a difficult routine. Today, the synchronization was not so good, but we did not get any base mark scores, and that makes us happy. This is my first gold medal, and it was very special hearing my hymn on the podium.”
Added Italian partner Ruggiero:
“We are preparing for the European and World Championships and this competition is very important because it is the first time that we compete together.”
With 291.6916 points, Ukrainian twin sisters Maryna and Vladyslava Aleksiiva won another silver medal. As was the case in the Duet Technical event, the gold medal winners’ routine had a higher declared degree of difficulty and was able to execute it well enough to outscore the high artistic impression scores of the Ukrainians.
“It has been a different experience, interesting to see how this works for the first time, it is unexpected, the points that you get, because you don’t know how the judges see. We will be competing in Montpellier and will be better.”
Added Marina:
“It is very appreciated, we feel big support from our country, our people, here in Markham, and it inspired us to show our best.”
After yesterday’s historical win in the Duet Technical, gold medalist Israel’s Shelly Bobritsky and Ariel Nassee returned to the pool to present their “New World” swum to music prepared specially for this routine by Arnau Vilà. The duo claimed the bronze medal with a score of 281.5043. Bobrintsky shared that they were still on an emotional high from yesterday’s win:
“It was hard, we gave everything we had, and we know that we have a job to do before the next competition. This event has been amazing, we love Canada.”
Acrobatic
The final event of the day brought performative fireworks with the thrilling and much-anticipated Acrobatic routine. Team Ukraine started their routine with an impressive one-handed handstand which set the tone for the rest of the choreography for which they received 244.4958 points to claim the last gold medal in Markham.
“We are so appreciative to see and feel the support from our country. We are blessed and grateful and are happy to see how strong our country is.”
Added teammate Anhelina Ovchynnikova:
“This was a new routine for our team, and we feel very good about it, and it was fun to present this. It is a new stage for our sport, with the new rules. We need to do something huge, invent something new.”
With a fast and furious choreography theme of "Formula 1," Team Japan scored 223.6875 points to win their sixth medal, a silver, to top the Medal Table in Canada. Japan’s results in Canada indicate that the Japanese athletes are well on their way to reaching their goal to medal in each of the events contested at the upcoming World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka.
Team USA won the bronze medal with 204.9959 points. The Americans swam to Japanese drum band music in their “Amazon” routine was choreographed, which ideally matched the power, fearlessness, and courage of amazons the Americans wanted to depict.
“We displayed a lot of strength and agility throughout the routine. It has been a great experience here in Canada. Especially with the changes made by World Aquatics to the competitions, it has been fun and a sport type of environment, that has created a lot of energy for us."
Medal Table | Artistic Swimming World Cup – Markham 2023
|
Ranking |
Country |
Gold |
Silver |
Bronze |
|
1 |
Japan |
3 |
2 |
1 |
|
2 |
Spain |
2 |
3 |
|
|
3 |
Ukraine |
2 |
2 |
|
|
4 |
Italy |
2 |
|
|
|
5 |
Israel |
1 |
|
2 |
|
6 |
China |
1 |
|
|
|
7 |
Canada |
|
1 |
2 |
|
7 |
Kazakhstan |
|
1 |
2 |
|
9 |
United States of America |
|
1 |
1 |
|
10 |
Belgium |
|
|
2 |
Final Thoughts on the new Artistic Swimming scoring system after Canada
World Aquatics Artistic Swimming Technical Committee Chair Lisa Schott (CAN) expressed pleasure with all that has happened both in and out of the pool in Markham:
“I am very proud of the artistic swimming community who came out and showed up with their top teams. Congratulations to the athletes and the new scoring system I hope they now believe that anything is possible. Dream Big!”
What's Coming Next for the Artistic Swimming World Cup After Markham, Canada
The next stop for the inaugural World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup will be the meet in Montpellier, France, which will run from 5-7 May. Montpellier will be followed immediately after by the third meet of the Artistic Swimming World Cup in Somabay, Egypt from 13-15 May. The Somabay event is part of the Egypt Aquatics Festival, where artistic swimming will be joined by an Open Water Swimming World Cup and the beach water polo qualifying tournament for the ANOC World Beach Games - Bali 2023. The Artistic Swimming Super Final, scheduled to take place from 2-4 June in Oviedo, Spain, concludes the 2023 annual series before the World Aquatics Championships - Fukuoka 2023 gets underway in July.
Click here for all event videos and results from Markham, Canada.