The Canadian Senior National Artistic Swimming Team is coming off a strong 2019 season debut in Greece, and is ready for its second major competition of the year.

The Canadians began their competitive season at the second stop on the FINA Artistic Swimming World Series 2019 in Alexandroupoli, Greece. The Canadian squad earned 7 medals at the April 4-7 event at the AXD Aquatic Center.

In the Team Highlight event, the 10-member squad took home the silver medal with a very strong performance. The 8-member squad won another silver in the Team Technical and then powered to a gold medal in the Team Free event.

In the Duet Technical, duet partners Jacqueline Simoneau and Claudia Holzner took bronze, and then were edged out of the silver in the Duet Free by less than a point. In the solo events, Jacqueline Simoneau swam to gold in the Technical and won bronze in the Free.

Following the event, the team spent an intensive week training in Greece where they reunited with Russian Olympic gold medalist and choreographer Anastasia Ermakova. Then they travelled to Japan, where they completed another rigorous training camp under the guidance of Head Coach Gábor Szauder and Assistant Coach Kasia Kulesza. This camp was hosted by Suzuka City and Mie Prefecture, and will be the location of the CAS Olympic Staging Camp in 2020, which gave the team an opportunity to become familiar with the facilities and surroundings. In addition to their training, the team members engaged with the community as they hosted training for young local artistic swimming teams and participated in school visits.

According to Head Coach Szauder, “Having the team together in both Greece and Japan has been very productive time. They have had excellent training sessions, fine-tuned the choreography, and strengthened their focus as a team. We feel strong and confident going into the competition in Japan as we continue our preparation for the Lima Pan Am Games.”

In the 4th event on the FINA Series at the Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center on April 27-29, Canada will compete in the Solo Technical, Solo Free, Duet Technical and Duet Free, and as a Team in the Technical, Free and Highlight events. Competitors from 24 different countries will participate in the Tokyo event.

Start lists and results will be available here: http://swim.seiko.co.jp/artistic/2019/01/en/index.html.