It has been a history-making week at the World Aquatics Masters Championships in Doha with the first-ever Men’s solo events in artistic swimming.
The inaugural Men’s Technical and Men’s Solo artistic swimming events at the World Aquatics Masters Championships have wrapped up, with four new world champions crowned at the Hamad Aquatic Centre.
Spain’s Tony Marin Giron (30-39 years), Japan’s Atsushi Abe (40-49 years), Germany’s Johannes Andrees (50-59 years), and France’s Christian Bordeleau (70-79 years) are the first-ever winners of the men’s events in their respective age-groups with all four claiming the honours across the technical and solo competitions.
Marin Giron’s first world masters title is the culmination of an intense period of training, working on new routines and technical elements.
“I really wanted to show all the work we’ve done in the pool these last few months, and all the skills that can be done in this sport,” Marin Giron told World Aquatics.
While Giron only started the sport as an adult and is competing at his first international competition, Japan’s Abe is a veteran of the sport with two World Aquatics Championships medals to his name. Abe won bronze in the Mixed Duet and Mixed Technical at Gwangju 2019 in what was his final senior international competition as a 36 year-old before joining ‘Cirque du Soliel’. Abe also competed in the inaugural Mixed Duet events at Kazan 2015, and placed fourth in both the Mixed Duet and Mixed Technical events at Budapest 2017.
The oldest swimmer in the field, new masters world champion Christian Bordeleau, was cheered on by the large French contingent and was delighted to be part of a history-making event in Doha.
“There were four of us... four male solos to start writing a new page in the history of world artistic swimming,” said Bordeleau.