Artistic swimming, formerly known as synchronized swimming, is an underrated Olympic sport that is absolutely beautiful. The 10 participating teams strut out to the edge of the pool with a full face of makeup, glamorous costumes, and get into acrobatic poses before gracefully diving into the water.
The breath technique, core strength, endurance, stamina, and cohesive rhythm that it takes to perform a choreographed dance underwater is astonishing, and the athletes in the Paris 2024 Olympics left everything they had in the pool while battling it out in the Team Technical Routine category.
Italy and France took the lead early on before Spain came out with dazzling, colorful swimsuits and high-energy music to snag the first place position. But China, which was the last team to compete, performed an extremely difficult routine that landed them the first place position with more than 26 points above Spain in second place. China was awarded 313.5538 technical points and blew it out of the water.
Spain earned with 287.1475 technical points, and Italy finished in third place landing the bronze medal with 277.8304 technical points.
Although the United States of America ended in seventh place, they did an inverted moonwalk underwater to Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson, which was impressive.
One major change to the sport this year was that men are now allowed to compete in Artistic Swimming for the first time. Under the rule changes announced by the International Olympic Committee and World Aquatics in December 2022, a maximum of two men can form part of the eight-athlete team event, but not the two-athlete duet event.
However, spectators wouldn’t be able to spot this historical change as not a single man had been selected among the 96 athletes from 18 countries. Regardless, the decision marks a win for diversity and representation in sports by challenging traditional gender norms and stereotypes that have limited opportunities for male artistic swimmers like United States’s Bill May.
The artistic swimming teams still have two more events to complete tomorrow, Team Free Routine on Aug. 6 at 1:30 PM ET and Team Acrobatic Routine on Wednesday, Aug. 7 at 1:30 PM ET.