Friday was Figures Day at the 1st FINA Youth World Artistic Swimming Championships being held in Samorin, SVK. All 322 athletes taking part in the competition had to perform 4 separate figures, which are complex technical elements, in front of panels of judges. The resulting scores were then to be added to the preliminary routine scores to determine the 12 entries moving on to Sunday’s finals.
The results cemented Team Canada’s spots in the finals in both the team and duet event, as they moved up one rank in the preliminary rankings, from 11 to 10 in team, and 12 to 11 in duet.
On Sunday, the Canadian duet pair of Tara Goettisheim, from Hudson, QC, and Charlotte Gray, from Toronto, ON, (alternate Mya Fortin) will compete to further improve their placing at this first 13-15 World Championships. They will be swimming in 5th place in the final.
The Canadian Team will also be looking to improve their score from the preliminary round as they compete in the Championships’ closing event. The athletes competing for Canada will be Elizabeth Battista (Calgary, AB), Jeanne Boilard (Québec City, QC), Léonie Corbeil (Mirabel, QC), Mya Fortin (Gatineau, QC), Charlotte Gray, Tara Goettisheim, Lauren Irvine (Guelph, ON) and Jonnie Newman (Calgary, AB), with alternates Meaghan Lapierre (Ottawa, ON) and Nancy Liu (Richmond, BC).
Mixed Duet
The newest event on FINA’s artistic swimming competition schedules, the mixed duet, will be held on Saturday. Canada’s pair of Peter Matthews-Crochetière, from Roxboro, QC, and Sabrina Roussel, from Blainville, QC, will be the first of the 7 entries to compete, followed by Kazakhstan, Spain, China, Japan, Slovakia and Italy.
The 1st FINA Youth World Artistic Swimming Championships are being held at the X-Bionic Sphere complex in Samorin, Slovakia, from Aug 28 to Sep 1. All schedules and results can be viewed at finasamorin2019.sk, and events are available to watch live and on archives at finatv.live.