Jacqueline Simoneau wins figure event at FINA World Junior Championships

Helsinki, August 1, 2014 – Jacqueline Simoneau of Montreal posted the best score in today’s figures event at the FINA World Junior Synchronized Championships.

After placing 10th in the event two years ago in Greece, Simoneau had high hopes for this year’s competition. She edged Anisiya Neborako from Russia, thus ending the country’s long streak of winning the figures component of the World Junior Championships. “I am very happy with my performance today”, said Simoneau. “I know how rare it is to beat the Russians at this event and I’m extremely proud to have done it.”

Her figures marks will be worth 50% of the overall mark for her solo which she will perform on Sunday morning. She currently stands in third place in the event after preliminaries, behind Neborako and Asuka Tasaki from Japan. “For the finals, my goal is to reach the podium, but I’m mainly concentrating on offering my best performance on Sunday.”

The Canadian duet of Clare McGovern and Erica Slavin (alternate: Wenjing Deng) also had strong performances in today’s figures event, allowing them to move from 7th to 6th in the standings before tomorrow’s finals. They have been working over the past few days too make little adjustments to their routine so they can have their best performance tomorrow.

The team will go into Sunday’s final in 7th place after preliminaries. “We are completely ready to show the judges what Canada is made of tomorrow”, they mention. “We want to move up in the standings by swimming sharper and having no regrets.”

Duet finals take place at 10am in Helsinki (3am EDT) while the Team event is scheduled for 4pm (9 EDT). Both events will be broadcast live at http://sporttv.fi/hki2014 .

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

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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