Artistic swimming at the World Aquatics Championships – Fukuoka 2023 got off to a great start in the Marine Messe A Aquatic Center in Fukuoka, Japan with the Female and Male Technical Solo and the Female Technical Duet preliminary events.
Fukuoka, after having previously hosted the World Aquatics Championships in 2001, will be home of the worlds best aquatic athletes for the next two weeks.
The top twelve athletes from the preliminary rounds qualified to swim again in the finals of each of the events and will have the opportunity to be creative and change their strategy by making changes in the degree of difficulty of their routines.
As has been the trend since the implementation of the new scoring system, today’s preliminary rounds were filled with surprises, big and not so big performances, historic performances, but especially excitement and buzz over the unpredictability of what the results of artistic swimming at this World Aquatics Championship will be.
WoW! MOMENTS
Female Solo
Hometown favorite Yukiko Inui, competing in her eight World Aquatics Championships, for her presentation of “The life of a droplet”, an interpretation of her love for the water and life as an Artistic Swimmer. Inui’s performance today received the highest difficulty score and was more than twenty points ahead of the field. Inui, undefeated in the Solo events for the past year, demonstrated her dominance and made it clear that she will be giving it her all to remain the best soloist in the World.
Male Solo
As this is the first World Aquatics Championships to feature the Male Solo events, and all ten male competitors are part of history, adding to the inclusion of males in the sport.
Female Technical Duet
The top four pairs in the Technical Duet event are twin or triplet sisters. 2022 World Champions twin sisters from China, Liuyi Wang and Qianyi Wang, qualified for the finals in first place. The Chinese twin sisters are followed closely by two of the Austrian triplet sisters Anna-Maria and Eirini Alexandri. While Budapest 2022 World Championship silver medalists , Ukrainians Maryna and Vladyslava Aleksiiva and Dutch duet Bregje and Noortje de Brouwer follow in third and fourth.
X FACTORS
With the new scoring system implemented in 2023, the opportunity for anyone to reach the podium has been evident throughout the season. Several countries who never have been able to qualify for a spot in the finals are able to perform routines with the declared difficulties and not receive the dreaded base marks. In the Female Technical Solo, Korea’s Riyoung Lee, Germany’s Klara Bleyer, Kazkhstan’s Karina Magrupova, and Aruba’s Kyra Hoevertsz, proved that this new system is changing the sport and its predictability added to the intensity and suspense of the competition. In the Technical Duet, the Duet Maria Goncalves and Cheila Vieira made it to a final round for the first time, writing themselves into the Portuguese record books.
WHAT TO WATCH IN FINALS
Female Solo
With Inui being as strong as she has been, the top of the podium in the Female Solo event may be difficult to reach, however, the second and third steps are up for grabs. Delightfully surprising was the performance from Greece’s Evangelia Platanioti. Platanioti, a bronze medalist at the 2022 Budapest World Championships, confidently scored the second highest difficulty score, even though this was her first time competing as a soloist under the new scoring system. In contrast, Spain’s Iris Tio Casa, who qualified in seventh, will have another chance in finals to proof that she is capable of The difficulty scores she received throughout the 2023 World Cup series.
Male Solo
With this many new competitors in this relatively new event on the program, the athletes with the most competitive experience will have the upper hand. It will be Spain’s Fernando Diaz del Rio Soto’s gold medal to lose. However, don’t forget multiple World Cup medalist in the Solo events, Kazakhstan’s Eduard Kim, who has the capability and experience to get onto the podium with a clean swim.
Female Technical Duet
With the top four sister duets being strongly in the lead with their difficulty scores, the results will be determined by them able to execute the values they declared. Having the perfect swim can bring anyone to the top of the podium, while the risk factor can have a significant influence on the outcome of the competition. Multiple 2023 season medalists Japanese Moe Higa, and Mashiro Yasunaga, and Israel’s Shelly Bobritsky and Ariel Nassee together with Mexico’s Nuria Diosdado Garcia and Joana Jimenez Garcia are each capable of changing the final outcome in Fukuoka.
SCHEDULE & RESULTS
The Top 12 for todays’ events can be found on the World Aquatics Website. The schedule for the Artistic Swimming Championships (local time GMT +9) is as follows:
Saturday July 15th
10:00 am Acrobatic Preliminaries
14:00 Mixed Duet Technical Preliminaries
19:30 Women Solo Technical Finals
Sunday July 16th
10:00 Mixed Team Technical Preliminaries
16:30 Mixed Duet Technical Finals
19:30 Women Duet Technical Finals
Monday July 17th
9:00 Women Solo Free Preliminaries
14:00 Men Solo Technical Finals
19:30 Acrobatic Finals
Tuesday July 18th
9:00 Women Duet Free Preliminaries
15:00 Men Solo Free Preliminaries
19:30 Mixed Team Technical Preliminaries
Wednesday July 19th
16:30 Men Solo Free Finals
19:30 Women Solo Free Finals
Thursday July 20th
10:00 Mixed Team Free Preliminaries
19:30 Women Duet Free Finals
Friday July 21st
10:00 Mixed Duet Free Preliminaries
19:30 Mixed Team Free Finals
Saturday July 22nd
10:00 Mixed Duet Free Finals