SAINT-DENIS, France – With Russia out of the way, China is the new force at the Olympics artistic swimming.
Twins Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi gave their country another gold in the sport formerly known as synchronized, winning the duets competition at the Paris Olympics on Saturday night.
The Wangs built a lead in the technical routine the night before and carried that momentum into a freewheeling routine called “Gravitation,” performed to music by Dutch DJ Junkie XL and German film soundtrack composer Hans Zimmer.
They crawled across the deck in their shiny costumes like a pair of spiders before diving down. A pair of high heels drew “ahhhs” from the crowd, propelling the Wangs into a nearly three-minute routine spent mostly with their heads underwater.
“We have developed very quickly,” Wang Liuyi said through a translator. “But this actually happened over several generations of athletes. Everyone has the right to shine, but previous generations in China fought hard for us.”
The Chinese pair scored a total of 566.4783 points, beating out two teams that won the first artistic swimming medals for their countries.
Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe of Great Britain won silver with 558.5367, beating another set of twins, Noortje and Bregje de Brouwer, who took bronze for the Netherlands with 558.3963.
“We are such a small sport in the Netherlands,” said Noortje de Brouwer. “We hope to expand it. With the medals we have now, we want to see more girls and boys trying to achieve the same goal we have. We hope to see you in the pool.”
From Sydney in 2000 to Tokyo three years ago, Russia won every gold medal in artistic swimming at the Olympics.
But that period of dominance would certainly end after the invasion of Ukraine, which led to Russia largely becoming a pariah on the international sporting scene. The country has not competed in a major international meet since then.
The Wangs said it didn’t matter that the Russians weren’t in Paris to defend their Olympic titles, especially as the sport adopted new rules designed to promote more athleticism and open things up to a wider group of countries.
“Our coach emphasized that in our competitions we are just ourselves,” said Wang Liuyi. “It’s nobody else. At the Olympics, we performed well in all competitions. That’s what we want to show the world.”
Clearly, it helps to work with a twin in a sport where it’s all about being in sync.
In addition to two sets of twins on the medal podium, fourth place went to Austria’s Anna-Maria and Eirini-Marina Alexandri, who are part of a set of triplets, while fifth place was taken by another set of twins, Ukraine’s Maryna and Vladyslava Aleksiiva.
“Our body shapes are similar,” said Wang Qianyi. “Our appearance during competitions allows us to give a good artistic impression to the referees. We also live together. We are interested in similar things. We know each other very well. Sometimes all it takes is a simple look.”
The Wangs’ victory capped a stellar two weeks for their country at the Olympic Aquatics Centre, adjacent to the Stade de France.
The 6,000-seat venue was the venue for China’s unprecedented achievement of all eight gold medals in divingthe last of which came just hours before the Wangs took their country 2-2 in the artistic swimming events.
The twins were also part from the eight-person squad that won gold in the team competition, continuing a career that already included world championships in 2022 and 2024 in both free duet and technical duet.
“Under this new set of rules, anything could be possible,” said Wang Qianyi. “In these Olympics, for example, we have many new athletes and new countries winning medals. We are starting again. We hope that in the future we can contribute to the development of this sport.”
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