Historical gold medal in artistic swimming in the team technical routine
The Spanish team touched the sky in Fukuoka to become world champion and won gold in the technical routine, the main test of the discipline, in a final in which they beat Italy and the United States and with which they secure a Olympic square at the Paris Games.
Spain completed a fusion mix of flamenco and a popular Japanese song, in a nod to the World Cup headquarters and also to the origin of the coach, Mayuko Fujiki, who will also go down in history after some rather difficult seasons.
Ole Fukuoka summarizes the trajectory, the origin of the team, the essence of its swimmers and the Asian touch of Mayu. The execution was impeccable, without errors, and the artistic impression at a high level, at the level of the best, of the one offered by China and Japan, although with a difference: the Asian ones fail; the Spanish are infallible.
“We'll all get through”
The exercise was filled with messages, some imperceptible, but added one by one, they offer a wonderful composition.. Thus the voices of the Spanish swimmers are recorded in the routine and part of the lyrics are interpreted in Japanese sign language.
And little by little, Spain was reeling off its countdown to gold. What is the message of the Japanese song?: “It says that everyone is special, that life is hard, but the sun is always above us, and that we will all get ahead with the help of our peers”, Fujiki assured EFE.
Spain began by drawing a platform with the eight swimmers and Sara Saldaña continued, as a jumper, emulating a 'bailaora'. One of the great moments was an aquatic 'zapateao' at eight o'clock, the evocation of the popular Japanese song and the simulated sound of castanets in the final part.
Spain added 281.6893 points to Italy's 274.5155 and the United States' 273.7396, a team coached by Andrea Fuentes, a member of the old Spanish dream team.
a decade later
The team had not been on the podium in team competitions since 2013, in that World Cup in Barcelona that marked the end point for a great generation of swimmers, a competition in which they won silver in technical, free and combo teams, although then they were the Russian team as the great dominator of the world concert.
The team, made up of Iris Tió, Alisa Ozhogina, Meritxell Mas, Sara Saldaña, Paula Ramírez, Blanca Toledano, Cristina Arámbula and Marina García, is the one that has made history, the one that will proudly wear the gold sought for so many years.
This is the fifth medal after the gold for Fernando Díaz del Río (technical gold), the bronze for Iris Tió (technical only), the silver for the mixed technical duo (Emma García and Dennis González) and the also bronze in the technical duo ( Alisa Ozhogina and Iris Tió).