As for Svetlana Romashina, she had her solo debut here, in Kazan, at the Universiade in 2013. As the leader of the Russian team, three-time Olympic champion and 16-time World champion Natalya Ischenko took a time-out and a maternity leave after London 2012, Romashina tried herself in solo performances. It was a challenge for her, but she succeeded. She won gold medals at the Students Games, at the FINA World Championships in Barсelona 2013 and at the European Championships in Berlin 2014. Romashina impressed the judges and the audience with her Marilyn Monroe free program (the musical theme from «Some like it hot»).


Svetlana Romashina in action in Kazan photo credit: Giorgio Scala for Deepbluemedia

This time we could see Svetlana only in tech solo. And Natalya Ischenko will make a “come back” in the free routine.

Quotes

Gold medallist, Svetlana Romashina: “In some way “Pretty woman” is much alike my “Marilyn Monroe” routine. At the same time they are quite different. But they are both in my style. They suit me perfectly. The technical routine is always a risk. That’s why I tried to think not only about the image. I was very focused before the final. We are the leaders in synchronized swimming. And if we want to keep this high position we should be prepared 200 percent. To get such scores we should be head and shoulders above our opponents”.

(on home crowd support) “The support of the public was fantastic during the preliminaries and the final. My parent and my boyfriend were on the tribunes, cheering me up with handmade posters. was very important for me to show my very best performance to excite them and to show the results of my everyday training”. 


Ona Carbonell (ESP) in action in Kazan

Silver medallist, Ona Carbonell “For this edition of the World Championships I decided to focus on solo and mixed duets only. I have decided not to participate in the team and free combination events because it is hard to take part in all of them, physically and mentally, especially a year before the Olympics. My coach and I believe that it is safe to have some kind of rest this time to be on top form for Rio 2016.”