After three consecutive silver medals, the People’s Republic of China are finally Olympic champions in Artistic Swimming.
The People’s Republic of China has won the gold medal in the Artistic Swimming Mixed Team event at Paris 2024, finishing 81.7968 points clear on the overall standings after the Team Technical, Team Free, and Team Acrobatic routines. With medals awarded on cumulative scores across the three routines, China finished on 996.1389 points, ahead of the United States of America (914.3421), and Spain (900.7319).
This is China’s first gold medal in Artistic Swimming at an Olympic Games, having previously won three consecutive silver medals in the team event. Coached by former Olympians Zhang Xiaohuan and Ana Tarres, the team of Chang Hao, Feng Yu, Wang Ciyue, Wang Liuyi, Wang Qianyi, Xiang Binxuan, Xiao Yanningm, Zhang Yayi, are now Olympic champions.
The gold medal caps off a dominant three years for the nation since Tokyo 2020. At a World Championships level prior to Budapest 2022, the nation had won just one gold medal in forty-nine years of competition. After Doha 2024, that number had sky-rocketed to fifteen. While some of that success can be attributed to the absence of sanctioned teams at international competitions over that period, the Chinese team did embrace the new rule changes that overhauled the sport at the start of 2023.
Even prior to the rule changes there were signs China was quickly becoming a new force in artistic swimming. Winning the Team Technical and Team Free gold medals at Budapest 2022, China would then go on to win the Team Technical and Team Acrobatic events at Fukuoka 2023, before clean sweeping the Team Technical, Team Free, and Team Acrobatic events at Doha 2024.
Along with their recent dominance has been a high degree of consistency. Of the eight swimmers that have won gold here in Paris, six have been part of all seven World Championships team gold medals, and since the adoption of the new rules in Artistic Swimming - Feng Yu, Chang Hao, Wang Ciyue, Zhang Yayi, Xiao Yanning, and Xiang Binxuan have won five of the six team gold medals on offer at a World Championships level.
Adding further to their success in Paris were twins Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi, who although only being part of five of the team gold medals since Budapest 2022, are both ten-time world champions having paired for gold medals in the Duet Technical and Duet Free at both Budapest 2022 and Doha 2024.
The Chinese team was one of the oldest in the pool in Paris with an average age of nearly twenty-six, however with that age brought experience. The Olympic gold medal has been a three-year project with this group of swimmers, with that feat realised last night at the Olympic Aquatics Centre after three exceptional performances over three nights of competition.
Speaking after the Mixed Team medal ceremony, coach Zhang Xiaohuan said she had told her team to embrace the opportunity this week of competing on the biggest stage possible.
“Every time before we performed this week, I told the girls that I hope they can fully enjoy this moment, and they really did, I feel particularly proud,” said Zhang.
Zhang, who was part of China’s bronze medal winning team at Beijing 2008, also acknowledged the work of the athletes and coaches of past Chinese national teams.
“I want to thank our generations of team members for their efforts over many years. Today’s achievement is not just the result of this team’s efforts, it is the result of the hard work of several generations of team members and everyone that has persevered to achieve tonight’s result.”
“This team also started at a really good starting point. Without the second place at the Tokyo Olympics, we wouldn’t have achieved what we did today. So I am really grateful to everyone that was part of this success.”