In another thrilling and unpredictable competition, influenced by the new scoring system, the duo representing China won the gold medal. Mexico’s duo won silver, and the bronze medal was claimed by the Spanish pair.

Wentao Cheng and Haoyu Shi, Budapest 2022 bronze medalists and winners of the bronze medal earlier this week in the Technical Mixed Duet,  presented the choreography “Romeo and Juliet”,  which they swum to the song of the same name by Michael Bruce.

The Chinese pair entered with a 35.75 point declared difficulty and were able to execute without errors. Receiving 225.1020 points for a beautiful rendition of the classic love story, Cheng and Shi claimed China’s third gold artistic swimming medal in Fukuoka.

Shi, sharing the excitement of winning, said: “I felt today’s performance was crazy because we changed four elements. I think this is our best score. I think we are the best team, and we are doing very well. We are proud of our team.”

With the implementation of the new scoring system, the championships have seen several first-time World Aquatics Championships medal winners. In the Mixed Free Duet event, it was the turn for Mexico’s Itzamary Gonzalez Cuellar and Diego Villalobos Carrillo to win their country’s first World Aquatics Championships medal for Artistic Swimming. 

A tribute to their culture, Gonzalez Cuellar and Villalobos Carrillo presented the Mexican tale “La Llorona”, a Mexican tale, for which they were awarded 192.5500 points to step onto the podium and receive the silver medal.

Villalobos expressed their satisfaction at the achievement:

“We are very satisfied with our performance. We didn't have any base marks. I think our score was very good and we feel very proud of what we did.” Gonzalez added, “We are very happy and very tired. We really gave it everything in the pool. We are happy to be able to finish the World Aquatics Championships with this routine.”

The Spanish representatives finished the last event in Fukuoka in the same way they did for the first, with a bronze medal. Dennis Gonzalez Boneu, who earlier became the World Champion in the Male Free Solo and the silver medalist in the Technical Mixed Duet with Emma Garcia, partnered with Mireia Hernandez Luna for this event.

The duo received two base marks for their performance of the choreography “Angela and Demons”, swum to the song with the same title by Hans Zimmer. Gonzalez Boneu and Hernandez Luna scored 183.4207 points, to bring Spain’s total in Fukuoka to seven medals.

After winning his third medal Gonzalez Boneu said: “I am very happy. It was a very successful championships. We made a lot of mistakes in this final that we didn't realize at the time, but in the end that's something that only the judges can see. We did our best and we got what we were aiming for - a medal. We are very proud of this result.”

“We feel very proud of everything we did to get here. It was not the goal we had in mind, but we know how the ‘game’ works now, and that those who take the most risks sometimes have more chances to fail. For us, we want to reach that highest mark, which means that sometimes we get base marks. We’re happy with today's performance, and we are satisfied with our results,” added Mireia Hernandez Luna.

Gala

The Gala, at the end of the competitive portion of a Championship, has become a staple at Artistic Swimming events. During the competition, athletes are understandably focused on peak performance. But the Gala provides the opportunity for everyone to have fun and connect through the sport that they all love.

The Thailand coaches, however, brought a sense of fun to the pool deck all week as their athletes were competing. They were so engaged in their athletes’ performances, that they were performing the same movements as the choreography while watching.

Austria was special to watch, with triplets swimming a routine together. At the end of the gala show, the Japanese artistic swimmers jumped into the pool and invited everyone else to join them. It created quite a spectacle, with dozens of artistic swimmers dancing, clapping, and whooping, and even all the Technical Officials were dancing and joined in the fun.

Congratulations to the host Japan and to the Artistic Swimming community for a successful event.

Medal Standings

The full results can be found on the World Aquatics Website.