2014 FINA World Cup: Canada wins the crowd's heart, China wins duet and team events

Québec City, October 4, 2014 – The third day of the 13th FINA Synchronized Swimming World Cup was its busiest, with the presentation of three events including two finals. China continued its golden week with 2 gold medals in the duet and team events.

But the evening’s highlight was the Team Canada’s inspiring performance in the Team Free event. Swimming in front of a sold-out crowd, the Canadians delivered one of their best-ever renditions of their snakes and ladders routine, bringing the crowd to its feet in appreciation and earning a score of 89.8667. Their combined score of 177.5773 was good for fourth place.

“Fourth is frustrating for sure”, said team captain Marie-Lou Morin. “We would have loved to get the extra .2 points to reach the 90 barrier, but other than that we simply couldn’t be happier with our performance. We made our coach cry, we must have done something right!”

China came in first with a score of 188.0322, Japan was second with 182.4088 and Ukraine third with 181.9573.

In the duet event, the Chinese pair of Xuechen Huang and Wenyan Sun, who were in first position after the technical portion of the event, dazzled the crowd and the judges with their free program to garner a 94.6777 routine score and win the gold medal with a total of 186.7041. Japan won silver with 181.5469 and Ukraine bronze with 181.4274.

The Canadian pair of Jacqueline Simoneau and Karine Thomas, who were fourth after the technical program, had the crowd on their feet following the energetic rendition of their “Scorpions” program. They came in a strong fourth position.

“We were not particularly nervous before our performance today even though our friends and families were in the crowd”, said Thomas. “However, the energy we received from the cheering public is impossible to describe. We are very grateful to have been able to compete in such an important event in our home country.”

Meng Chen, Canada’s Head Coach, was extremely proud of the pair’s performance : “They made some mistakes in the technical event on Thursday and didn’t have much time to regroup. They have only been swimming together for a few months and for them to get together and offer a performance like today’s is extremely impressive. We should all be very proud of them.”

“We’re happy that we’re getting closer to the teams ahead of us”, she added, “but we feel that the marks we’ve been receiving don’t reflect how close we truly are to our competitors. When the scoring system was changed in 2013, we decided to focus on the difficulty of our routines and even though we’re not always getting rewarded for it right now, we think it will pay off eventually.”

In the free combination preliminaries, held earlier in the day, China placed first once again, followed by Japan and Ukraine.

The competition will finish tomorrow as the Free Combination and Team Highlight events will be held, followed by a Gala watershow featuring the week’s best programs as well as a few programs from local clubs.

About Synchro Canada

Synchro Canada is the national organization governing synchronized swimming in Canada. It represents 10 provincial associations, a territorial association, as well as some 150 clubs and 12,000 members across Canada. A member of FINA, the world’s governing aquatic sports organization, Synchro Canada promotes the quest for excellence by developing the athletes, citizens and ambassadors of the sport of synchronized swimming at every level.

Synchro Canada would like to thank its sponsors:

Program partners: Sport Canada, Own The Podium, the Institut national du sport du Québec

Official Aquatic Supplier: Speedo Canada

Official make up: MAKE UP FOR EVER

Official suppliers: Knox Gelatine, AdUp, National Car Rental

Official hotel: Hilton Hotels Canada

For further information, visit Synchro Canada’s Website at www.synchro.ca or follow Synchro Canada on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

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For information:

Stéphane Côté

Synchro Canada

Communications Coordinator