Boasting six of the eight athletes who finished third in the French capital last summer the Spanish team were highly-fancied heading into the contest.

However, with Olympic silver medallist USA, a strong Japanese lineup and two French teams seeking success in front of a partisan crowd, there were no guarantees.

France’s ‘A’ side, containing several of those who helped the nation to fourth at their home Games, wowed the crowd, but would ultimately finish fourth.

The USA, debuting their ‘Peacock’ themed routine claimed third, with Japan’s dazzling ‘basketball’ inspired performance enough to secure second.

Earlier in the day, Great Britain’s Ranjuo Tomblin claimed his second historic victory in as many days, adding to his solo success by teaming up with Holly Hughes to claim his nation’s first-ever Mixed Duet Tech gold at an Artistic Swimming World Cup.

In the day’s other final Japan’s Tomoka Sato and new partner Uta Kobayashi took the Women’s Duet Tech Free title. 

Team Technical Final

After an exciting opening day of World Cup action at the 1924 Olympic Games aquatic venue ‘Piscine Georges Vallerey’ a sell-out crowd arrived ready for to witness further empowering performances in the pool.

They too delivered their part, providing the perfect soundtrack of cheering, applause and energetic support throughout the three finals.

The evening would, as expected, deliver arguably the highest intensity with a host of Olympic heavyweights uniting to for an artistic swimming showdown, worthy of the venue.

After Great Britain’s youthful line-up had opened the 12-nation strong contest it was the turn of Japan, who were fifth at the Paris 2024 Games, to remind audiences around the world of their enduring class.

Their baseball theme and would see them score a strong combined score, for artistic impression as well as execution, of 257.2774.

That put them top of the standings, a place they would remain in after the USA’s strong line-up scored 255.9350.

“It’s a new routine and we were really excited to swim and show what we’ve been working on,” Olympic silver medallist Jamie Czarkowski told World Aquatics.

“It’s only been a few months but we’re really proud of the progress we’ve already made and we’re already excited about the next competition where we’ll make even more fixes.”

Spain were the last country to take to the water and quickly demonstrated impressive mastery of their new routine, which was delivered in spectacular style.

They were awarded a degree of difficulty (DD) score of 41.7500, the second highest in the contest behind ‘France 1’, with their overall score of 273.7066 seeing them claim gold by a margin of 16.4292 from Japan.

“Wow, we enjoyed that so much,” she told World Aquatics. “It was probably the best run-through we have ever done and the public was amazing so it was an incredible experience.

“It’s the first time we’re swimming this season so we are growing and bringing together a new team, so we think we can do even more in the future.”

Mixed Duet Technical Final – Further GB and Spanish Success

Twenty-four hours after becoming the first British man in history to win an Artistic Swimming World Cup gold, Ranjuo Tomblin joined Holly Hughes and the new pairing achieved a further landmark, by attaining their nation’s maiden Mixed Duet World Cup victory.

An energetic delivery of their ‘dance-pop, funk, hip hop soul’ themed routine – to ‘Sax’ by Fleur East – delighted both the capacity crowd and the judges at the Piscine Georges Vallerey venue, with the pair awarded 182.9325 for their display.

“Oh my goodness, I can’t believe this is happening,” Tomblin told World Aquatics.

“We’re obviously really happy with the result, but there are things we know we need to improve on because we’re really disappointed about that first lift, and we’re going learn from this experience.”

Hughes added; “It’s pretty cool as this is my first international competition competing with Ranjuo and yesterday he got the gold medal, so I thought ‘high expectations’ but we seem to have met them!”

The event would also see Spain achieve a landmark double, claiming the silver and bronze medals, marking the first time – since the change of rules for the 2025 season – that two solo, duet or teams from the same nation can attain places on the podium.

Previously, only the top-ranked national representative(s) would be eligible.

That meant there was a degree of relief for Dennis Gonzalez Boneu and Sara Saldana Lopez, who scored 167.4617 points for their ‘HipHop Lets go!’ routine and placed third, behind team-mates Jordi Caceres Iglesias and Aurora Lazaro Cabaleiro.

Their performance, to Ceuta Football's team’s anthem, was awarded a total of 170.2192.

“I think it’s so good, we feel so happy,” said Gonzalez Boneu. “In other years two Spain’s can’t stay on the podium, but now we are so happy to be on the podium together and for that this is amazing for us.”

Lazaro Cabaleiro continued; “I think we are a new pair that has to improve a lot of things but I think with a lot of training we will improve the little details that will make us better for other competition.”