Carla Pusta and Maceo Vanhee-Dedieu added another title to the list of French artistic swimmers to become global gold medallists following a breath-taking display in the Mixed Duet Free final on the penultimate day of the 2025 World Youth Championships in Athens, Greece.
Coming off the Paris 2024 Olympics, France has had a stellar Youth Championships so far and now have added gold in a non-Olympic discipline, ahead of the Mixed Duet Free's potential inclusion at the Brisbane 2032 Games.
China, the reigning senior Olympic champions in both the Duet and Team events, were also impressive in obtaining silver. “Of course, we’re happy for the medal,” Chen told World Aquatics. “Every day we work for 10 hours in training, and one day we wish to be the Olympic champions.”
It may be early in their careers, but Chen, who claimed Men’s Solo Free bronze on Thursday, and Xu look well-placed to help their nation achieve that ambition.
Rounding off the top-three were Japanese duo Heizo Aitaka and Yuiko Atsumi (237.3426).
The day’s other final saw 12 nations battle it out for the prestigious Team Free title, with ‘Neutral Athletes B’ ultimately following up their impressive display in Tuesday’s preliminary round with an event better performance in the final.
An overall score of 290.3509 was their reward for a brilliantly executed creative routine, themed ‘Challenge Yourself’, with the USA (267.5929) placing second and France (267.4050) third.
“I’m very happy as it’s my first gold medal from a World Championships and I need to say thank you to my trainers and my team because without them I couldn’t stay here,” Varvara Barabashova told World Aquatics.
Team-mate Sofiia Mikhailova added: “Yes, we were fantastic. It was a difficult programme and we train 10-12 hours a day, six days a week, for the last six months to prepare for this.”
Silver medal-winning USA artistic swimmer Jaclyn Zhuge said she was “proud” of her team’s achievements, having only spent six weeks together working on the routine.
“It’s a new team who have only known one another for a very short period of time, but we learned how to trust one another by being open and honest and of course we can focus because we all have a common gold,” Zhuge told World Aquatics.
Vanhée-Dedieu, who completed the set of World Youth honours by following up his golds in the Solo gold and Mixed Duet events with Team Free bronze, admitted that stepping onto the podium again, but this time with his team, was an “emotional” moment.
“It was an emotional programme because it’s the last time we will swim together because a lot of teammates are older and go to juniors next year,” he said. “But it was also full of emotion because I think it’s the first medal for France in a World (Youth) Championships in team, so we are extremely happy to achieve this.”
The final day of competition at the 2025 World Aquatics Youth Artistic Swimming Championships in Athens, Greece, will see athletes contest the Women’s Duet Free and Mixed Team Free Combinations finals.