BARCELONA, Spain, 19 July 2003 — Russia’s Anastasia Davydova and Anastasia Yermakova swam a routine to the theme of sharks to snatch the duet gold from defending champions Japan in synchronized swimming at the world swimming championships here yesterday.
The World Cup champions pushed Miya Tachibana and Miho Takeda into the silver medal position with Spain taking their third medal of the championship with bronze.
The Russians, runners-up two years ago in Japan, earned a string of maximum 10 marks for artistic impression, and all 9.9s for technique during the free routine to the music of the ‘Deep Blue.’
They scored 99.500 points for the free routine to give them a final overall result of 99.084 when it was combined with the results of the technical routine earlier in the week.
The Russians had unveiled a new program, and did not compete in the inaugural free routine combination event earlier in the week in order to concentrate on reclaiming the duet title for their country.
In their absence the Japanese claimed that title.
But Tachibana and Takeda, the first ever synchro champions from Asia two years ago, failed to convince the judges with their reworked program.
They did not achieve any maximum scores with marks ranging from 9.8 to 9.9 for their routine to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue which earned them 98.333 and a final tally of 98.084. Brushing tears from her eyes, Tachibana explained they had wanted to create something new and more artistic.
“We didn’t think that it was good to try anything different, but we wanted to try something more than what we’d been doing,” said Tachibana.
Anna Kozlova and Alison Bartosik of the United States scored the third highest points in the free routine, but the bronze went to Spain when their results were combined.
Gemma Mengual and Paola Tirados scored a final 96.667 to the Americans’ 96.334 for the hosts third medal after sharing silver in the opening free routine combined event, with Mengual winning bronze in Thursday’s solo.
