From this year, artistic swimming will be another sport. The new regulation makes its debut

Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Roc (which would then be the Russian Olympic Committee): it is the hall of honor of artistic swimming events at the last six Olympics, from Sydney 2000 to Tokyo 2020. Russia-China-Ukraine , Russia-China-Ukraine, Russia-China-Ukraine: it was the podium of the duo competitions, again in artistic swimming, between the 2015 and 2019 World Championships. In 2022, in Budapest, with the absence of Russia at because of the war, everything slipped by one position and the podium became China-Ukraine-Austria. Italy-Spain-Slovakia, Italy-Spain-Slovakia: they were the nations that won medals, in the technical program and in the free program of the mixed duo, at the European Championships in Rome last summer.

For decades artistic swimming – as synchronized swimming has been called since 2017 – it was a sport with crystallized rankings, from hierarchies already decided at the start, from the “political” influence exerted by some countries on the judges. A sport in which “the result of the previous races also mattered”, as he says George Minisini, reigning world and European champion in the mixed duo together with Lucrezia Ruggiero. This will no longer be the case this year. At the European Games scheduled from today to Sunday 25 June in Oswiecim, Poland, which will award the continental titles and the first Olympic pass for Paris 2024 to the winning duo, the duo will compete for the first time in a major international event with the new regulation entered into force at the end of 2022. An objective, meritocratic regulation. “The most significant change in the history of this sport,” as they wrote in England.

“Artistic swimming from this year will be a new artistic swimming,” he explains Patricia Giallombardo, technical director of the Italian national team. “The new regulation is very close to skating, rhythmic gymnastics and diving. All elements are coded with a difficulty coefficient predetermined by the international federation. We coaches before each match will have to present the coach card, with all the elements in order of appearance, and there will be judges who will check that the routine is performed correctly, under penalty of penalty points”. Giallombardo continues: “Before there were no coefficients, it was the judges who determined the difficulties, and we went by intuition, it was all subjective. This will make the assessment much more objective. The goal is to try and change the rankings. If perhaps before no one ‘allowed’ for Russia to finish second, even if they made a small mistake, now it’s all mathematics, paper sings. It will be nice to have the opportunity to be judged objectively.”

The new regulation was tested in Italy as early as February, during the absolute winter championships held in Riccione. At the beginning of June, at the 2023 World Cup finals held in Oviedo, Spain, ten different countries took the podium in the various artistic swimming disciplines: Japan, Spain, Canada, France, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Italy and China.

“I am super enthusiastic about the new regulation”, says Giorgio Minisini, who will compete in the mixed duo with Lucrezia Ruggiero at the European Games and, for the first time since the opening to the participation of men in the Olympics, also in the team competition. “Obviously it’s hard to change after so many years of swimming any other way, but it was just what I wanted. What is the characteristic of sport? Have a clear result based on a number of goals achieved, right? How to score goals. That’s it, our exercises will now be a series of goals to score. Before, artistic swimming was a sport from a physical point of view, but from the point of view of competition, it lacked competitive spirit, it lacked that unpredictable component which can only be good for the entire movement. Artistic swimming needs competitions in which only what you do in the competition counts. No one truly wins in a sport that alienates the crowd. But we all win if our sport becomes fairer, more truthful and more exciting to watch.”