Barcelona – Spain, July 23, 2013: Ukraine celebrated their first trip to the podium at a World Championship (in synchronised swimming) with a bronze-medal winning performance in the team technical routine. The podium was exclusively European with Russia and Spain finishing 1-2.
This evening at Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi, the Russians showed what they do best, scoring a brilliant 96.600 points for a fourth consecutive world title in the event.
Team Russia – four of which are returning athletes from the 2012 London Olympics and won gold at the 2009 and 2011 editions of the event (Patskevich, Timanina, Korobova and Shishkina) – performed a speedy routine, marked by perfect command of figures and transitions.
The team from the host federation swam in conquered territory (the sport being very popular in Spain) and captured silver with a total 94.400 points. The Iberians’ lively routine combined excellent physical endurance, synchronisation and artistic talent. After taking two bronze in the solo and duet technical on day 1 and 2, tonight’s silver is a boost ahead of the free programmes.
With China absent from the team events in Barcelona, the path was clear for other podium contenders, namely Canada (fourth in Shanghai), Japan and Ukraine.
The Ukrainians, whose progress in synchro has been tremendous in the recent years, did not miss their chance to prove their abilities on the international stage, totalling 93.300 points for a historic bronze.
Ukraine had never been ranked higher than fifth in all synchro events at World Championships. With this result, Europe’s number 3 becomes an established threat to former powers Japan and Canada, eager to reclaim a spot at the top.
Japan, whose team won team technical silver in 2007, finished fourth while the Canadians, who are presenting six new routines in Barcelona, took fifth.
QUOTES: Gold medal winner: Russia
Alexandra Zueva: “We are new and young members of the team. This is our first World Championship gold, these emotions are new, that’s why we are so happy.”
Maria Shurochkina: “We’ve trained hard for a year and it wasn’t easy because there are five new members in our team so it was hard to work together at the beginning.”
Tatiana Pokrovskaia, head coach of the national team: “The team technical routine is difficult to train because there are a lot of elements to perform with the best possible quality and it takes time to integrate them.”
“I was positively surprised by Spain. Even though they have a new coach, I did not notice the difference in their level, they are still very innovative and strong.”
Silver medal winner: Spain
Clara Basiana: “We are very happy with the silver. We also have a new team so we had to train again the routine with them. We are very happy to celebrate this medal at home with our family.”
Bronze medal winner: Ukraine
Kateryna Sadurska: “It’s an amazing feeling to win this medal, it’s like a dream. We didn’t expect to win this medal.” “It’s a lot of hard work and we are proud of this result.” —- Photo © Giorgio Scala/Deepbluemedia
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