Ukraine finished the FINA Artistic Swimming World Series Super Final on a high note as the team claimed the last two titles on offer and finished the event with seven gold medals. Based on the results obtained in the whole season, Canada topped the ranks.
The final day of the Super Final offered two really spectacular events, the Highlights routine and the Free Combination – and a gala as a bonus. Ukraine doubled the titles down with convincing performances.
The Ukrainians enjoyed every moment of their routines – Credit: Istvan Derencsenyi
The execution of the routinesmade the girls happy in the Ukrainian camp – their highlights received mostly 9.5 and 9.6s from the judges.
“Today the whole team was really focused” Yelizaveta Yakhno said after the golden session. “We paid a lot of attention to the rises, somersaults. The highlights were totally new, it had not been included in the programme before. This performance had a lot of jumps, somersaults and original moves, everybody had to focus on the others. We could give our best in the most difficult discipline, we could harmonise it with the music and each other, the choreography worked well, so it was faultless and we performed it with great pleasure. We have been working on it for a long time in order to show all the elements well and we practised a lot. Even the most difficult parts were well performed. The most interesting and spectacular part was when we were carried away with the music. We had been thinking a lot how to perform the best elements on this beautiful music. It was the first public performance of this discipline before the World Championships in South Korea and we can say it was brilliant. It gave us really great motivation to the further practice.”
High lifts in the highlights
On their overall impression of the event and the venue, Yakhno was also with full of praises (note, that this is only the second time that a senior artistic swimming event takes place in the Duna Arena – the 2017 World Championships were hosted in the magnificent outside venue at the Varosliget, next to the Vajdahunyad castle).
“We felt ourselves extremely well in this spacious, awesome swimming complex during our stay here. It was comfortable for preparing for the competitions, we had enough space in the dressing room to do our hair and makeup. The water was calm and it did not hurt our eyes. We also had a relaxation area where we could have a little rest and prepare for the next performance. The other good thing was, that the warm-up swimming pool gave us the opportunity to revise everything properly for the next show. Thanks the organisers to have invited us that we could perform in this wonderful facility and also for the smooth and fluent arrangement of the competition. All in all we can say that we are really satisfied with everything.”
Special costumes, special joy - the Spanish highlights routine
In the highlights the Spanish finished runners-up and Canada earned the bronze medal – in free combination, besides the Ukrainians, only the host Hungarians were eligible to compete in the final as these two teams participated in the minimum required number of legs (4).
FINA cashed out 567.000 USD altogether in this season, a record-breaking sum in this discipline.
The protagonists of the three-day meet
Medallists, Day 3
Highlights
1. Ukraine 94.4667
2. Spain 91.6333
3. Canada 89.7667
Free Combination
1. Ukraine 94.2667
2. Hungary 78.5000
The Ukrainians were outstanding in the Super Final
World Series Overall
1 Canada 1425
2 Ukraine 1365
3 Spain 1220
4 Japan 1130
5 France 708
6 Hungary 678
7 Italy 520
8 Russia 500
9 Germany 308
10 Kazakhstan 198
11 Serbia 161
12 Singapore 92
The Canadians have made significant progress recently