The official opening ceremony was held on the second competition day of the fourth leg of the FINA Artistic Swimming World Series 2018 in Samorin (SVK).

In her welcome speech, president of Slovak Swimming Federation Irena Adamkova thanked FINA for the opportunity to host this competition.

“We are celebrating 100 Anniversary of aquatic sports in Slovakia next year. Artistic swimming is also on the rise in our country. The results, the skills of the athletes have been progressing since 2012. Yet we organise a top international event of this kind for the first time ever. We are very glad that FINA expressed this trust and confidence in Slovakia as a host country. We believe that Samorin will be nominated for the World Series next year and we will meet here again.”

Head of the FINA Technical Committee for artistic swimming and FINA technical delegate Lisa Schott once again draw attention to the amazing facilities in Samorin:

“This is something special about this sport in an outdoor pool. It becomes even more spectacular. So we will be glad to come back here next year.”

 

photo by Peter Sukenik

Addressing the participants, Lisa Schott said:

“The colour of the medal won’t be the main thing you will remember after the competition. It will be the experience, the atmosphere and the friends you’ve made”.

Turning to the competition programme of the second day, it started with the technical mixed duet with the only pair from Spain taking part in the event.

Ibon Garcia and Nayara Maria Pena (ESP) earned 68,8183 points for their performance.

On having no rivals at this meet, Ibon Garcia commented:

“We definitely missed some other competitors, because we try to be better, to stay close to the opponents. Nevertheless, it’s a good thing that we are here, that we can show our mixed duet to the audience.”

 

photo by Peter Sukenik

Then he added:

“I started doing synchro at 12 years old. Now I’m 27. Nayara, who is 24, first came to the pool at 7 years old. We have been performing together for three years. But we only compete with our club. This is the first time we represent Spain in the competition. We will also take part in the sixth leg of the ASWS in Madrid.”

 

photo by Peter Sukenik

In team events, the Ukrainian girls dominated the field, collecting two gold medals. In the team free routine Ukraine, represented by a junior squad, conquered gold with 84,4668 points.

The fight for the minor medals was between Spain and Belarus, who finished second and third (83,1332 and 82,5000 respectively).

Oleksandra Burdova (UKR) confessed that the team was nervous about accurate execution of some risky elements.

“We have difficult acrobatic elements, especially in the beginning of the programme. But we managed to perform that risky lift successfully.”

 

Team Ukraine, photo by Peter Sukenik

On the programme, Valeriia Shylo added:

“This is a new routine for our young team. But this was the Olympic program of the senior team in Rio. That’s why it’s a huge responsibility to show a good performance.”

Delighted with the result and with the silver medal, Selena Gomez of Spain said:

“We always come to do the best we can with very high expectations. We were hoping to leave the competition with medals. We were at our maximum level and we are happy with how it turned out. This is our first competition this year all together. We are going to the junior European championships in Finland and to the World championships in Budapest.”

In free combination Ukraine topped the podium earning 84,4668. Belarus took silver with a score of 82,4000 points. Hungary was third (75,2000).

 

On winning the full set of medals in team event – gold in tech routine, silver in combi and bronze in free programme, Veronika Yesipovich, who is also a part of the Belarus duet, commented:

“We are not completely satisfied with the results. We know we can do better. We had in view 84 points for the free routine and 85 for the combination. Perhaps, the lifts were not so high. But the pool is not deep enough. This could be the reason we didn’t do what we expected to the utmost. However it was a good practice before the European Championships in Glasgow and we will try to improve”.

 

Belarus duet