Silver weekend for Team Canada at Spanish Open

Canada continued its excellent season on June 27-29 at the Spanish Open in Castellon, Spain, where it captured two silver medals and significantly closed the gap with its Spanish rival.

In the duet event, the new Canadian pair of Karine Thomas from Gatineau, QC and Jacqueline Simoneau from Montreal came achingly close to a gold medal taking silver with a strong 89.0262. The Spanish pair of Ona Carbonell Ballestero and Paula Klamburg Roque, swimming in front of a home town crowd, came in first with 89,3073.

“Once again, we improved the quality our our routine since the last competition”, says Simoneau. “We are both very excited and happy about the way we swam the duet, especially in the final where it matters most.”

In team competition, Canada also took silver.

“In the technical team event, we had a very solid performance”, says team captain Marie-Lou Morin. “Even with such a short time since the Japan Open (June 6-8), we have managed to improve and grow as a team. So far this has been our best competition and we have shown a constant growth since the beginning of the year.”

In second place after the technical event, Canada kept its ranking after the free team routine preliminaries and came into the Saturday final ready, improving its marks and once again reducing the gap with the first-place Spaniards.

“We were not completely satisfied with our performance in the preliminaries but we were able to come back strong in the final. Once again, we were able to show off our our acrobatic lifts as well as our synergy”, says Morin.

Canadian Head Coach, Meng Chen, was pleased with the results : “I’m really proud of how much our team and duet have improved since the beginning of the season. These necessary and fantastic experiences provide us more encouragement and confidence to keep moving forward. I am so excited to show our next improvement at the World Cup in Quebec City.”

Canada will now come home and spend the summer training in preparation for the FINA World Cup on October 2-5.

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

Official Aquatic Supplier: Speedo Canada

Official make up: MAKE UP FOR EVER

Official suppliers: Knox Gelatine, AdUp, National Car Rental

Official hotel: Hilton Hotels Canada

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