World Aquatics Championships 2023: People's Republic of China claim artistic swimming team free gold
China bounced back from team technical disappointment to take victory ahead of Japan and Ukraine with Spain only fourth.
Artistic Swimming
The People's Republic of China won yet another gold at the World Aquatics Championships 2023 in Fukuoka, this time in the artistic swimming mixed team free final in Fukuoka on Friday (21 July).
While officially a mixed event, 12 all-woman teams took part in the final after China posted the highest score in Thursday's prelims.
Spain capitalised on China's errors to take a historic team technical gold on Tuesday, but the reverse occurred this time with the Spaniards' execution score more than 40 points down from the prelims.
The Chinese, with six of the team that won acrobatic gold on Monday, were close to flawless. They posted the only execution score in excess of 200 in a winning total of 329.1687.
Japan had the best artistic impression mark of the day as they improved considerably on their prelims score to take silver with 317.8085.
Ukraine (256.2415) claimed bronze with Spain (249.6521) missing out on the medals.
There were no quota places on offer for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games here. Instead, five spots are up for grabs at next February's World Championships in Qatar.
Saturday sees the last artistic swimming event of these World Championships, the mixed duet free, with China's Cheng Wentao and Shi Haoyu finishing well clear in Friday's prelims.
WIth Chen Yiwen winning the women's 3m springboard earlier on Friday, China now have 13 golds at Fukuoka 2023 with Japan and Germany next best on four.
Results from mixed team free final at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, Fukuoka
- People's Republic of China 329.1687
- Japan 317.8085
- Ukraine 256.2415
- Spain 249.6521
- Israel 247.7290
- Italy 244.1174
- Greece 232.6396
- Australia 221.6416
- United States of America 218.6605
- Great Britain 217.1897
- Kazakhstan 185.0375
- Egypt 179.6291