The Acrobatic Routine and Duet Free events were on the schedule for the last day of the 2023 World Aquatics World Cup Super Final in Oviedo, Spain.
In the last event of the competition, the always entertaining and spectacular acrobatic routine, Team Canada entered the field of 7 competitors with the third highest declared degree of difficulty and held its ground by offering a gutsy performance that received its full difficulty value of 19.10 and a score of 197.1600, good for the silver medal behind Ukraine and ahead of Israel.
The team members were: Laurianne Imbeau (Québec City, QC), Jonnie Newman (Calgary, AB), Raphaelle Plante (Québec City, QC), Kenzie Priddell (Regina, SK), Kiara Quieti (St-Leonard, QC), Claire Scheffel (Brantford, ON), Florence Tremblay (Rimouski, QC) and Olena Verbinska (Toronto, ON), as well as alternates Sydney Carroll (Saskatoon, SK), Audrey Lamothe (Montreal, QC) and Mya Fortin (Gatineau, QC).
“I’m proud of how this young group of athletes has responded under pressure this week,” analyzed Head Coach Gábor Szauder. “They’ve spent the past months learning how to train, and now they’re learning how to compete. The World Championships in Fukuoka next month will be another opportunity to gain precious competition experience as we continue to build this team to be at its best for the Pan Am Games in the fall.”
In the duet free event held in the morning session, the newly formed pair of Jonnie Newman and Kenzie Priddell was first to dive in. Performing their free routine for the second time only in competition, they offered a much improved performance that received a score of 158.3020, good for 7th position.
“I’m so proud of how Jonnie & Kenzie pulled it together today,” said duet coach Claudia Holzner, whose own Olympic duet free routine – re-choreographed to be optimized within the new system – is being used by the pair. “They’ve had an extremely busy competition – swimming 5 programs in 3 days – and they’ve only been working on this routine for a few months. What they’ve been able to accomplish in this short period of time is a great sign for things to come.”
Canada concludes its Super Final competition with a 4 medal haul: Audrey Lamothe’s two bronzes in the solo free and technical events, another bronze in yesterday’s Team Free event as well as today’s silver. With the World Cup season concluding today, the next event for the senior national team will be the World Aquatics Championships that will take place in Fukuoka, Japan, on July 14-22, followed by the Pan Am Games in Santiago, Chile, in October.