Holzner and Simoneau in 5th place after Technical Routine
A personal best swim for the Canadian Duet of Claudia Holzner, 27, (Calgary, Alberta) and Jacqueline Simoneau, 24, (Saint-Laurent, Que.) has them in fifth place after today’s technical routine at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
The duo scored 91.4798 for their Let’s Dance themed routine, almost a full point higher than their score at this year’s 2021 FINA Artistic Swimming World Series Final in June. The teams ahead of them were the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) athletes in first, followed by China, Ukraine and Japan.
According to Holzner, this is “the most stressful routine for us. You have to do it perfect. You can’t miss or else you’re out of the game. We’re really, really proud of what we did tonight.” She’s already looking forward to the next phase of the competition, “the free is really exciting, really powerful and we know we can do that really well.”
Simoneau added, “It’s very rare that technical routine scores are higher than free routine scores, and this is why we’re so happy with our performance.” As they prepare for the Final, she said, “ tomorrow, we’ll be looking to deliver a performance that is strong, powerful and synchronized.”
The two are continuing to establish themselves in the top five in the world. They continued their upward movement in the world ranking, moving from 7th at the 2019 World Championships to sitting in fifth place ahead of tomorrow’s Free Routine. They are currently 2.38 points from the bronze medal position.
With 22 entries in the Duet event, the field has been narrowed to 12 moving on to the Free Routine Final. The Technical Routine score carries over and is added to the Free Routine Final score to determine the Olympic medallists. The Canadians will swim 7th of the 12 duets and competition gets underway at 6:30 a.m. (Eastern) on August 4th at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.