Jacqueline Simoneau of Chambly, Quebec and Claudia Holzner of Calgary, Alberta won the bronze medal in the women’s duet free artistic swimming World Series event in Surrey, British Columbia on Saturday. It was one of two medals for Simoneau and Holzner as a duo on the weekend as they also won bronze in the women’s duet technical artistic swimming World Series event in Surrey on Friday. One may wonder, what is artistic swimming? It was previously synchronized swimming, as FINA changed its name a year ago.
In the women’s duet technical artistic swimming World Series event, Holzner and Simoneau posted a bronze medal winning score of 88.6506 points. Yukiko Inui and Megumu Yoshida of Japan won the gold medal with a score of 91.5126 points. Anastasia Savchuk and Yelyzaveta Yakhno of Ukraine won the silver medal with a score of 90.919 points.
In the women’s duet free artistic swimming World Series event, Holzner and Simoneau posted a bronze medal winning score of 89.5667 points. Inui and Kanami Nakamaki of Japan won the gold medal with a score of 92.9333 points. Savchuk and Yakhno won the silver medal with a score of 91.7333 points.
Team Canada also won bronze in the women’s team technical on Thursday and the women’s team free on Friday. The women’s team technical and free comprised of Simoneau, Holzner, Rebecca Harrower of Edmonton, Alberta, Camille Fiola-Dion of Rimouski, Quebec, Sion Ormond of Aurora, Ontario, Halle Pratt of Calgary, Alberta, Audrey Joly of St-Eustache, Quebec and Andree-Anne Cote of Saint-Georges, Quebec. In the team technical, Canada posted a bronze medal winning score of 86.5904 points. Ukraine won gold with a score of 90.7305 points. Japan won silver with a score of 90.3419 points. In the team free, Canada posted a bronze medal winning score of 87.6333 points. Ukraine won gold with 93.2 points and Japan won silver with 92.3667 points.
These four bronze medals will give Canada confidence as they prepare for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Just remember these athletes will now be competing in artistic swimming, and no longer synchronized swimming.
