Canada places fourth in Acrobatic Routine at World Aquatics Championships

Day 3 of the World Aquatics Championships featured the acrobatic routine finals where the top 12 finishers from the preliminary round faced off with the first team event medals at stake.

Sitting in 4^th position after yesterday’s prelims and swimming 9^th out of 12 competitors, Canada delivered an even more confident performance to earn a final score of 222.1367, leaving them in 2^nd place with 3 teams to go. In the end, Canada finished 4^th with China receiving gold, Ukraine silver and the USA bronze.

“It truly felt amazing in the pool today,” said team member Sydney Carroll, from Saskatoon. “It was one of those performances where we had to make sure to stay focused after every highlight because they were all working so well.”

Canada is having a tremendous start to these Championships, swimming confidently and hitting the declared degree of difficulty in all routines so far. Team member Laurianne Imbeau, from Quebec City, credits team unity for this strong start:

“We are so much more than the sum of our parts. We’ve really come together and we know how much stronger we are as a whole.”

The acrobatic routine was the first of three events in the qualification process for the 2024 Olympics, and final scores from this final will be added to the upcoming team technical and free events scores to determine the 5 additional teams that get their tickets to Paris. Because China is already qualified, Canada currently sits in 3rd position behind Ukraine and the USA.

The turnaround to the next event will be quick as the Team Technical preliminary round is scheduled for the morning session on Monday. Carroll says Team Canada is approaching the event with a renewed sense of confidence:

“We’ve proven to ourselves that we can come together and perform well on this stage and with this pressure, so we use this, sleep on it, and go for it tomorrow!”

Simoneau third in solo free preliminary round

In the solo free event presented in the morning session, Jacqueline Simoneau delivered another basemark-free solo routine that left her in third position going into the finals. Entering the event with the third highest declared degree of difficulty, Simoneau remarked on the challenges presented by reaching such a high difficulty score.

“This is one of the most difficult routines I’ve ever done in my career. It lasts 2:18 seconds and ’m under water for over 2 minutes of it. It’s physically taxing of course, but also mentally taxing as you know going into it that you’ll be under for so long. But I’m very happy to have been credited for all my difficulty and watch out in finals because I’m planning on increasing the DD even further.”

Being under water for so long can also make it more difficult to express the artistry Simoneau has been known for over her career, but she is up to the challenge.

“You need to use every moment that you have above water to show emotion, but also really work on interpreting your music with your whole body and I think this is something that comes through in my free solo.”

Simoneau has been expressing gratefulness for people who have helped her throughout her career since the beginning of this competition, and went a step further for the solo free event by having the names of the most important ones inscribed on her suit. One of them is Hugo Chouinard, who has been mixing music for Jackie and the national team for many years.

“Good music is the backbone of every single routine and really sets you up for success. My solo free music is a great example of what Hugo can do as it makes it so much easier to go out and really interpret the music and let your artistry shine through. He’s been doing this for years and has been a key contributor for all the medals I’ve won so far in my career.”

Monday (February 5) events

The morning session will feature the Team Technical preliminaries starting at 9:30am local time, 1:30am EST. Team Canada will swim 7^th out of 17.

In the afternoon session, Audrey Lamothe and Jacqueline Simoneau continue their quest for Olympic qualification in duet with the presentation of the Duet Technical finals, starting at 2pm local time, 6am EST. They will be the 5^th pair to dive in out of the 12 finalists.