World champion Mayya Doroshko continued her impressive run at the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup in Paris, with a third gold in two days, combining with Aleksandra Shmidt to claim the Women’s Duet Free title on the second day of competition in France.
The 26-year-old, who won the Women’s Duet Tech final with Elizaveta Minaeva and partnered her again as part of their nation’s eight-strong Team Free title-winning side on Friday, was again in peerless form.
Doroshko and Minaeva attained an overall score of 310.0214 for their ‘Rising Force’ themed routine to claim a clear win over second-place finishers Kira Cherezova and Valentina Gerasimova.
They attained 295.8262pts to secure another silver medal, following their success in the Duet Tech event 24 hours earlier.
Completing the podium places in an event which featured an impressive line-up of 22 duets, were French swimmers Laelys Alavez and Romane Lunel (271.4826).
The excitable crowd cheered on the Olympians throughout their ‘Octopus’ inspired routine and even louder when it was confirmed they had secured the host nation’s second medal of the World Cup.
Minaeva returned to the water for the evening session where, when reunited with her wider squad of team-mates, the two-time World silver medallist help lead them to a further success.
Neutral Athletes B backed up their Team Free win on Friday with another commanding performance, this time in the Team Tech event, as their display to a ‘Backstage Romance’ themed routine attained a gold-medal-winning score of 301.1766 points.
Claiming second, with a dramatically improved performance when compared to their display in the Free final, were Italy (277.6866 pts).
Rounding off the top-three were Greece, who celebrated enthusiastically after landing a base mark free score of 274.7751 for their ‘Watch Me’ themed routine.
18-year-old duo Alina Rumiantseva and Zakhar Trofimov marked their World Cup debut with an impressive victory in a high-class Mixed Duet Technical contest.
Fellow teenagers, Yasmina Islamova and Aldiyar Ramazanov, who are 16 and 17 respectively and hail from Kazakhstan, were each part of their nation’s Team Free gold medal-winning line-up in Paris last year.
They secured a second Parisian podium position with a hard-fought silver, placing one position higher than they achieved in the Mixed Duet Technical at the season opening World Cup in Medellin, Colombia.
Completing the top-three were popular Colombian duet Gustavo Sanchez and Emily Minante, who demonstrated significant improvements to their performance which had seen them place fifth in home waters last month.
Nicolas Campos / Theodora Garrido of Chile and China’s Cao Yixin / Shi Haoyue placed fourth and fifth respectively.
World championship medallists Isabelle Thorpe and Ranjuo Tomblin placed a surprise sixth, but will return for the Mixed Duet Free event on Sunday.