Kazakhstan wins team acrobatic, China tallies 6 golds at Artistic Swimming World Cup

BEIJING, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Kazakhstan triumphed in the team acrobatic, while Israel clinched the women's duet free title at the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup here on Sunday.

"We are happy to win our first gold at the World Cup in Beijing with our team effort and will keep training hard for the next event," said Anna Pavletsova of Kazakhstan after the win.

China finished second in the team acrobatic, 8.7501 points shy of Kazakhstan, and the bronze went to Australia.

In the women's duet free, Shelly Bobritsky and Ariel Nassee of Israel stood atop the podium, 4.7457 points ahead of sliver medalists Lin Yanhan and Xu Huiyan of China, while Mexico seized the bronze.

"We just trained together for less than a month and were not that familiar with the moves of each other. With more practice in the future, I believe we can get better," said 18-year-old Xu, who had pocketed three golds at the event in Beijing.

Italy secured the mixed duet free title, while Kazakhstan and Spain won the silver and bronze, respectively.

As the three-day World Cup came to an end, China topped the medal tally with six out of the 11 golds on offer. The host nation competed in all 11 events, with its top swimmers focusing on the team free and second-tier athletes featuring in the other 10 events.

"As China's young artistic swimmers, we demonstrated our strength at the World Cup but also made some mistakes. The experience of competing in high-level events is valuable, and it can inspire us to make progress step by step," said Chinese swimmer Wu Jingyan.

Four stops are slated on the Artistic Swimming World Cup 2024 series calendar. Apart from the Beijing stop, the competition will also be held in Paris from May 3-5, in Markham, Canada from May 31-June 2, and the Super Final will take place in Budapest, Hungary from July 5-7, providing opportunities for elite athletes to get prepared for the Paris Olympics.