Team Canada just finished competing at the FINA World Aquatic Championships in Gwangju, Republic of Korea, and it demonstrated its season-long continuous progress with world-class performances in all events.
The team established itself as a frontrunner to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games at the upcoming Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. With final scores of 89.400 in the Technical and 90.1000 in the Free, the Canadian squad achieved season-best scores in both events to solidify their position as one of the top seven countries in the world.
“The plan for this season was to build towards the Olympic qualifying in Lima, and to show improvement at every competition,” said Head Coach Gábor Szauder, “We had amazing, dynamic performances from the team, duet and in the solo events in Korea. Our athletes have truly learned to compete at the highest level throughout this year, and we are prepared and ready to earn that Olympic qualifying spot in Lima.”
The Canadian team’s scores have been steadily improving from the start of the competitive season on the FINA Artistic Swimming World Series. As they now look towards the Pan American Games, their strong scores have distanced themselves from their closest rivals, Mexico and the United States, for the automatic entry available to the Champion at the Pan Am Games.
In duet at the World Championships, Jacqueline Simoneau and Claudia Holzner also firmly established themselves in the top echelon in the world, with a sixth-place finish in the Technical routine event with a score of 88.8659 and seventh-place in the Free routine event with a score of 89.7667. Their performances demonstrated their trademark powerful connection and the intricate difficulty woven into the choreography of their routines.
In the solo events, Jacqueline Simoneau has established herself as top five in the world. She debuted a new routine in the Technical Final, and her strong technique was rewarded with a score of 89.2932 for fifth place. In the Free she also finished in fifth position, just a few points shy of the podium with a score of 90.7000.
The Canadian team’s crowd-pleasing highlight routine scored 89.933 for a fourth-place finish, just missing a podium placement and the bronze medal by 1.2 points.
The Canadians, reigning Pan Am Champions, having won the duet and team events in 2015 in Toronto, are now travelling to Peru for the 2019 Pan American Games, where the Artistic Swimming competition will be held July 29 and 31 at the Centro Acuático, Villa Deportiva Nacional in Lima. The top placed team will automatically earn the 2020 Olympic berth for the Americas, which will also qualify the duet as well.