Who will be the first artistic swimmers to win World Aquatics Championship titles in the new Olympic cycle? Find out 19 July through 25 July when the best athletes show off their most entertaining, dramatic, and difficult routines at the Singapore Sports Hub.
Eleven gold medals will be at stake when the World Aquatics Championships Arena transforms into the mecca of artistic swimming this month. The first champions will be crowned on 19 July (in Men’s and Women’s Solo Tech), and the final two (in Mixed Duet Free and Team Acrobatic) on 25 July.
At the last world championships, in Doha 2024, China swept all three gold medals in the team events, three more golds in duet (of the four possible), and earned one world title individually in Men’s Solo Tech.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, China won both gold medals offered: in both team and duet.
Then, this June, at the 2025 World Cup Super Final in Xi’an, China, the host nation produced seven golds, three silvers, and one bronze.
Will Singapore tell a different story?
Not likely. China’s depth and dominance are clear, but it will be interesting to see if its versatile new star Xu Huiyan will contest six events again, as she did in Xi’an where the 19-year-old contributed to five gold medals (in solo, duet, and team).
Other nations in the medal hunt include Spain, now coached by its own three-time Olympic silver medalist Andrea Fuentes who returned to her native country after guiding the US to its first Olympic medal in 20 years at the 2024 Paris Games (team silver). Her return has been universally well-received by the Spanish athletes, as a role model and innovator. For example, Fuentes and her husband, Victor Cano, decided to feature a male flyer for the first time in Spain’s Team Acro routine at the World Cup stop in Markham, Canada. Alas, it was an old routine that Fuentes said would be immediately retired, but Fuentes and Cano have great faith in 21-year-old Dennis Gonzalez Boneu’s talent. Fuentes said, “he’s a master of acrobatics in the air,” so he may fly again in the future. Meanwhile, Spain has made effective use of Gonzalez Boneu’s chemistry with the experienced Iris Tio Casas in Mixed Duet events.
Keep an eye on Great Britain's Ranjuo Tomblin, 19, the newly-crowned 2025 European champion in Men’s Solo Tech who studies at the University of Bath when he’s not competing.
Potential medalists in the women’s Solo Tech and the Duet Tech events could come from Austria’s Alexandri triplets who trained alone for five months after the Paris Games because their Olympic coach retired. Now guided by Japan’s former national team coach, Nakajima Tatako, three-time Olympians Anna-Maria and Eirini won the 2025 European Championship title in Duet Technical in June, and Vasiliki captured the bronze in Solo Tech at the World Cup stop in Markham, Canada, her first competition in 11 months. (Vasiliki, the oldest of the 27-year-old triplets, was a reserve athlete at the Paris Olympics.)
Italy could be a contender in Team Acrobat. It’s spunky “Chicago” routine is a crowd-pleaser that features heavy blond wigs, which Sofia Mastroianni said, “feels like five or six kilos” yet helped the team take gold at the 2025 European Championships.
Speaking of interesting routines, at the World Cup stop in Markham, the US debuted a new Team Free event whose theme was the human body. It featured anatomical costumes and music that included its athletes’ breathing. While the routine is still being refined, the US athletes were excited by it, so it could stay in play for the remainer of the quadrennium under the guidance of their new coach Tammy McGregor (who won gold in the 1996 Olympic team event). Team Free is set for July 20, as the first team event on the Singapore schedule, while the popular Team Acrobat event will close out the artistic swimming competition on 25 July.
Schedule of finals:
Women’s Solo Tech, Solo Free (2 medals) 19 July, 22 July
Men’s Solo Tech, Solo Free (2 medals) 19 July, 21 July
Women’s Duet Tech, Duet Free (2 medals) 21 July, 24 July
Mixed Duet Tech, Duet Free (2 medals) 23 July, 25 July
Team Tech, Free, Acrobatic (3 medals) 22 July, 20 July, 25 July