On the first day of the fourth leg of the 2021 FINA Artistic Swimming World Series, hosted virtually by Canada May 29th and 30th, all the Technical events as well as the Free Combo Team event were contested. Although, the virtual world series events were taped, judged, and scored prior to the broadcast, the results remained unknown. The events were presented professionally in a video production and included great commentating by Karine Thomas (CAN) and Bill May (USA). Both Thomas and May are Artistic Swimming superstars, and their expertise and knowledge of the sport, resulted in a wonderful addition to simply watching your screen.  On the first day, multiple World Champion Russian Aleksandr Maltsev was unbeatable and added two more gold medals to his already grand collection of medals.  Maltsev won the Male Technical Solo event with an impressive 89.8282, and together with longtime Duet partner Mayya Gurbanberdieva, Maltsev scored 89.8193 in the Technical Mixed Duet event for the win.  

The first event on the program, the Female Technical Solo, featured several first-time participants. Japanese Asaka Hosokawa made her debut with a bang, scoring 82.2329 for her routine themed “Powerful Women” and narrowly outscoring USA’s Ruby Remati, for the gold medal. Remati, a Junior athlete, showed a lot of promise for her future by scoring 82.0855 for her silver medal routine.  Scoring 80.8713 earned Lara Mechnig from Liechtenstein the bronze medal. This is Mechnig’s second bronze medal in the 2021 World Series.   

In the Male Technical Solo event, up and coming star from Spain’s Fernando Diaz Del Rio Soto earned a solid 75.9238 for the silver medal behind Maltsev's gold medal winning performance.

With the Olympic Qualification Event only a few weeks away and 8 available spots in the Duet event for Tokyo up for grabs, the Technical and Free Duets include several participants seeking the qualification. Winning the gold medal with an 84.6649, was USA’s duet USA Anita Alvarez and Lindi Schroeder. Alvarez and Schroeder’s black and white bathing suits beautifully contrasted a modern version of the classical Fur Elise.  Japan’s duo Uta Kobayashi and Ami Wada, both Junior athletes, claimed the silver medal with a strong performance, earning 83.5193 for their “Belly Dance” routine.  Marlene Bojer and Michelle Zimmer representing Germany, scored 80.7454 for a bronze medal. Both Alvarez and Schroeder from the USA and Bojer and Zimmer from Germany have their sights on qualification in the Duet event for Tokyo at next month’s Olympic Qualifying event in Barcelona. Although their performances today showed that they are serious contenders, Lichtenstein (79.4879), Singapore (78.0380), Korea (76.7321), and several others that did not compete here are close and within reach.  It will be a very exciting and its expected to be a close competition in Barcelona requiring the very best of each participant, with little room for error. 

In the Technical Mixed Duets events multiple European and World Champions Mayya Gurbanberdieva and Aleksandr Maltsev performed their fairly new routine to music by rock band Evanescence for the gold medal. Spain’s Emma Garcia and Pau Ribes scored 83.9086 to win the silver for their Witch Hunters routine performance. In this year’s ASWS Garcia and Ribes have already won a gold and one silver for this routine.  Another debut performance, the bronze medal winning Mixed Duet representing Puerto Rico, Nicole Torrens Mercado and Javier Ruisanchez Torres Zayas depicted Arabian Royalty as they swam to Voices of the Sahara music by Emad Sayyah.

Team Belarus won the gold medal in the Technical Team event with 81.0866 points. Performing their “Funny Skeletons” routine to modern remix music by Living Tombstone, Belarus added points to their Team Ranking for the ASWS prize monies in the Team category. Belarus is participating in all four Team events this weekend and has the possibility to move into the lead. The team from Korea scored 78.9421 for the silver medal.

The final event of the first day was the Free Combo event featuring Belarus and Spain. This team is Spain’s Junior Team preparing for the 2021 Junior World Artistic Swimming Championships. The routine that scored 87.4333 is a recycled but very well-liked choreography from the Senior Team “The Machines”.    Belarus earned the silver medal by scoring 81.1667 for their “Run and Dance” routine.

The schedule for Day 2 of the 4th leg of the ASWS hosted by Canada:

Webcast available: artisticswimming.ca/ASWS2021

Sunday May 30th all times (EDT/UTC-4)

10:00 am Solo Free

10:49 am Male Solo Free

11:08 am Duet Free

12:00 pm Mixed Duet Free

12:20 pm Team Free

12:38 pm Highlight Routine

12:47 pm Exhibition Gala