Ukraine nearing first ever synchro gold
The only calmer day of the European Championships with no medals awarded, still,beautiful synchro events were held in the famous Schwimm- und Sprunghalle in Berlin.
With a rest day held at the open water events, the eyes turned to the synchro competitions where some magnificent performances entertained the crowd in the morning session and during the evening as well.
The solo free preliminaries saw another great show from Svetlana Romashina: the new Russian queen in synchro came up with her best again. As she was freed from the duet duties for this season, she had more time to focus on her solo routines. This is clearly visible in the results: before the final she already gained an almost 5-point lead over Ona Carbonell of Spain.
As of today this is the only event where the Spaniards wait the final ranked ahead of the Ukrainians (Anna Voloshyna is sitting third in solo) as their rivals also got more points in the free combination prelims. In this event they eventually battle for the title as the Russians stayed away. Again, the gap between them is tiny, just 1.1334 points, but the Ukrainians gained on them in all three categories (execution, impression and elements) and now they are nearing to earn their first European gold medal ever in synchro. Here Italy is a close third, well ahead of the Greeks.
Just as in the other two events – in duet and in team – great finals are in sight on Sunday.Tomorrow the first medals in synchro will be awarded while in open water the team event is up next.
Images courtesy of deepbluemedia.eu
