Olympian Audrey Lamothe secured host nation Canada their first honour of the 2026 World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup Super Final with a hard-earned silver, behind the outstanding Klara Bleyer.
Other stand out performances in Toronto included victories for Britain’s Ranjuo Tomblin (Men’s Solo Free), Japan (Team Free) as well as Yanjun Lin and Xu Huiyan (Women’s Duet).
Lamothe, who won the Women’s Solo double at the season opener in Medellin, Colombia, in February, took the lead in the 12-strong Solo Free final, with a score of 267.8651 points for her ‘spinning the void’ routine.
Georgia’s Mari Alavidze also impressed but recorded a total 0.213pts short of her Canadian rival, and after Italy’s Enrica Piccoli edged in behind Alavidze, it left Bleyer as the only athlete who could deny the hosts gold.
The 2025 Women’s Solo overall champion showed her class though, securing a title winning total of 281.6175pts for her routine, to the theme of ‘Space’.
“I'm very happy with the results as I’m tired from the season, but I see every competition as a chance to gain experience and confidence,” Bleyer told World Aquatics.
“Next week I will go home and work on some new choreography for the European Championships because last year I became European champion and I want to do it again.”
Lamothe said she was “proud” of her medal-winning performance after a “good swim”.
“I wanted to be on the podium and it was amazing,” she told World Aquatics. “It’s so fun to swim at home. I could see Claire [Calsina – Canadian team manager] in the crowd with a huge sign of my face and it was amazing.”
Great Britain’s Ranjuo Tomblin claimed titles in each of the Men’s Solo Technical and Mixed Duet Tech finals on the opening day of competition, and his relentless pursuit of gold continued 24 hours on, following an outstanding Men’s Solo Free display.
His passionate performance wowed judges who awarded the 20-year-old an event-winning overall total of 255.9600pts for his ‘journey from struggle to power’ themed routine.
Tomblin finished 7.4075pts clear of Kazakhstan’s Viktor Druzin and 9.6961 ahead of Italy’s third-place finisher Filippo Pelati.
“My family stayed up late last night to watch my performance and they were really pleased for me, but today I think they’ll be shocked because the Solo Free is not my strongest event,” Tomblin told World Aquatics.
“I've kept my degree of difficulty lower this time (compared to previous events), just to really focus on my height and execution and obviously I’m very pleased with how it turned out"
Second-place finisher Druzin admitted he faced challenges with the high concentration of chlorine in the water and also “forgot” parts of his hybrid, but was “very happy” to land silver, after taking bronze in the Solo Tech event on Friday.
Bronze medallist Pelati told World Aquatics that he was delighted to have made “big improvements” since he first debuted his ‘devil’ themed routine at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships and has now achieved an “important goal” in his career.
There was a rare podium miss by China’s talented teenager Guo Muye, who placed fourth, with the ever-popular Gustavo Sanchez of Colombia in fifth.
With World and Olympic champions China not to contest the Team Free final it presented a strong opportunity for the other eight nations to compete for gold.
Olympic silver medallists USA have struggled to find consistency since their success at Paris 2024 and underwent a second coaching change in under two years after missing out on a medal at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships.
They now look to be edging back towards their best and underlined that statement by backing up Friday’s Team Technical silver with Team Free bronze.
Italy too, a nation which has taken time to adapt to the significant rule changes which were first introduced back in 2023, also secured a second-successive podium finish, upgrading from bronze 24 hours earlier to place second.
Topping the podium, with a peerless performance and expert delivery of their ‘Bushido’ [the way of the warrior] routine, which attained a score of 257.9333pts, was Japan.
“We have made improvements since our last event and today we were able to earn the gold medal this time,” said Tomaska Sato.
“We are really glad to come here, and to compete against the many countries and we are pleased to enjoy a great performance"
“We are planning to compete next at the Asian Games, this was our last worldwide performance before the Asian Games [in September] so we were just really glad to join together and try to deliver our best performance.”
The last contest of day two saw 20 pairs contest a spectacular Women’s Duet Technical final, which featured a host of Olympic, World and continental championship medallists.
French Olympic duo Laelys Alavez and Romane Lunel have shown impressive form throughout the season, but such was the standard shown in this final that they would place fourth, despite a strong showing.
Edging their way on to the podium, by just 0.2151 points, were USA team World Championship medallists Anita Alvarez and Jaime Czarkowski. They claimed their first World Cup honour together at the fourth leg of the series in Spain last month and gave further evidence of their potential to become regular podium contenders.
“This is just our fourth competition together and Jamie and I have just been trying to build momentum all season,” revealed Alvarez. “We just completed our first season swimming together so being able to end it with another medal in the Duet Technical is really exciting.”
Ahead of them were Olympic silver medallists Kate Shortman and Izzy Thorpe, who were performing together for just the second time since Paris 2024, following Shortman’s extended break from the sport.
The Great Britain duo attained a score of 296.9701pts, to finish 17.0864 short of gold.
“We’re still getting back into it and still feel there is a lot more to give, but we were happy with today,” stated Shortman. Team-mate Thorpe added; “We’re very experienced now and we can see when there are little timing errors or things are slightly off, but we’re pleased with the progress heading towards the Europeans.”
Claiming that honour and adding to their success in the Women’s Duet Tech final at their home World Cup last month were China’s Lin Yanjun and Xu Huiyan.
“We are really excited to come to Canada and compete in the Super Final this year,” Lin told World Aquatics. “Our performance was at a regular level and we need to analyse this and find the problem so we can keep working on it in the future.”
The final day of competition at the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup Super Final in Toronto, Canada, will see the assembled field take on their respective Mixed Duet Free, Women’s Duet Free and Team Acrobatic disciplines.