Great performance by Spain, which should confirm its aspirations for medals in the free and acrobatic routines
MADRID, 5 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The ‘Mambo’ of the Spanish artistic swimming team was nailed in a great performance by Spain in the technical routine for artistic swimming teams, at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in which the Spanish could return to the podium, to the medals, if these good sensations are repeated in the free routines, this Tuesday, and acrobatic, on Wednesday.
‘Set it on fire… Mambo!’ begins the fantastic piece by David Newman, Frank Huang and Gustavo Dudamel with the LA Film Philharmonic Orchestra and the NY Philharmonic. And Mayuko Fujiki’s swimmers nailed it, they nailed it, without penalties or ‘base marks’ to, not counting the ‘extraterrestrials’ from China, be the best of the rest.
If they don’t fail, if there is no major surprise, China will be the gold medalist. Without Russia, banned from these Games by the invasion of Ukraine –also absent–, China is the big favourite (partly coached by Anna Tarrés) and in this technical routine they already went to an unreachable 313.5538 points, more than 26 above Spain.
But the Spanish, who before jumping into the water wrote ‘Paris’ with their bodies in a gesture that was very much appreciated by the fans at the Aquatic Centre, put a lot of fire into their ‘Mambo’. Without ‘base mark’, they are in second place, with 287.1475 points based on 189.7475 in Elements and a very good 97.4000 in Artistic Impression.
In the Teams, Spain will try to make a splash in Paris and take home an Olympic medal that they have not won since London 2012, when they won a bronze that was added to the silver by the great duo of Ona Carbonell and Andrea Fuentes. There is still a lot of swimming to do, two full routines, but for now Spain is starting in the best possible way after nailing a routine with a degree of difficulty of 51.150 points, the highest of all the participants.
Five swimmers are repeating – the duo of Iris Tió and Alisa Ozhogina, as well as Meritxell Mas, Blanca Toledano and Paula Ramírez – compared to Tokyo 2020, where they were seventh in the Team category. And there are three newcomers, Lilou Lluís, Marina García and Txell Ferré. Well, in their most difficult routine, the technical one, they did not fail and they are already dreaming of everything, except a gold medal that seems out of reach.
Behind China and Spain, the Italian team had the third best score (almost 10 points behind the Spanish team), while France was fourth, Canada fifth, Japan sixth and the United States, coached by the Spanish Andrea Fuertes, seventh after being penalized, like the Japanese, for not meeting the ‘base marks’ set. But both Japan and the United States should improve in the free and acrobatic routines.