Jacqueline Simoneau won Canada’s first gold medal at the World Aquatics Championships Doha in the women’s solo free competition, while China scooped further two gold medals on offer on Tuesday.
Simoneau topped the total difficulty and execution categories for a total score of 264.8207 points. Evangelia Platanioti of Greece, who had the best artistic impression score, was 11.5374 points behind Simoneau. Vasilina Khandoshka of Belarus was third.
It’s the 27-year-old Simoneau’s second medal of the world championships. She won silver in the women’s solo technical on Saturday, finishing behind Platanioti. Simoneau’s gold on Tuesday was Canada’s first since Sylvie Frechette won the solo event at the 1991 worlds in Perth, Australia.
Meanwhile, China’s Quan Hongchan and Chen Yuxi delivered a perfect diving performance to land the women’s 10m synchro title at the Hamad Aquatics Centre.
Showing no signs of fatigue from their heroics a day previously, where Quan took gold and Chen silver in the individual 10m platform event, the Chinese duo raced into an early lead with first and second round efforts of 57.60 and 54.60 respectively.
Kim Mi Rae and Jo Jin Mi of North Korea finished second, while the third place wen to Great Britain’s in-form Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix - who had already won mixed team gold and 10m platform silver in Doha - and her partner Lois Toulson.
Kim and Jo did their utmost to push for victory with a round five dive worth 75.84, taking them into a temporary first place while they waited for China’s final effort. But they ultimately had to settle for silver, as Quan and Chen showed nerves of steel to land the highest-scoring jump of the competition, 87.36, to win the gold.
A thrilling finish saw Mexico’s Gabriela Agundez Garcia and Alejandra Orozco Loza threaten to snatch the bronze medal with a superb final dive worth 72.96, but they were ultimately pipped to the final podium position by the Britain pair, who held their nerve with a score of 74.88.
Earlier, China won the team technical gold in artistic swimming. On Sunday, the Chinese won the team acrobatic event and added two more on Tuesday, meaning they have now taken four of the seven golds on offer in artistic swimming.
The Chinese team, which included twins Liuyi Wang and Qianyi Wang, who had won the technical duet the day before, scored 299.8712 points, well clear of defending champions Spain who could muster only 275.8925pts. Japan took bronze with 275.8787pts.