Gold medal for Ukraine’s Anna Voloshyna on first day of Toronto Synchro World Series

The fourth FINA Synchro World Series began on Wednesday, May 3 at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre and home star Jacqueline Simoneau started off the event with a silver medal for Canada.

This fourth meet is being held in conjunction with the 2017 Canadian Open.

Simoneau scored 89.9691 in the Solo Tech Routine to add a fifth medal to her season. Just nudging Simoneau out of the gold medal by less than a point was Ukraine’s Anna Voloshyna, who scored 90.8138. The bronze medal went to Colombia’s Daniela Dominguez Daza with a score of 73.1515.

Simoneau can see the progression of her routine since it was unveiled for the first time in Paris in March.

“In France the routine was still quite new for me and so it was about giving me a chance to get the judges’ feedback and see if there were points that we could improve. Then in Japan it felt more like my routine, and I executed my elements a lot better. Competing here, less than a week later, I was really able to step it up. I corrected a few little mistakes that I made in Japan, but I felt like I really owned it.”

The highlight for Simoneau was her combined spin, which is the second to last element in the program.

“I was pleased to really nail it and keep my speed up all the way through. To be able to show consistency and the same speed throughout the element shows how strong I am technically.”

Voloshyna also saw improvement over her previous outing in Paris.

“This is my second competition of the World Series. I feel better than in France because in one month I had more time for training and I felt much stronger here.”

Ukraine was the only competitor in the FINA Team Highlight category. Their routine received 90.5 points en route to the gold medal.