China Poised to Dazzle

All eyes on their artistic swimmers after intensive closed-door prep for world meet

- Kimberly Kwek

For over two decades, Russia's artistic swimmers were the best in the world. From 1998 to 2019, they dominated the discipline, topping the medal standings at every edition of the World Aquatics Championships and achieving a clean sweep of golds on three occasions.

But then came the Covid-19 pandemic, disrupting the sporting world and unsettling the established order. The 2021 world championships were pushed to 2022 to avoid clashing with the postponed Tokyo Olympics, and by the time competition resumed, the artistic swimming landscape had begun to shift.

Normalcy returned to many sports, but not to Russia. In March 2022, Russian and Belarusian athletes were banned from World Aquatics competitions due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine the month before.

Their absence cracked open the door for Asian nations to surge through, with China rising to the fore. And the top dogs look set to dominate again at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships (WCH).

Though China first tasted world championship success in 2017, when they took the free routine combination gold, Chinese national coach Zhang Xiaohuan believes that the 2022 edition was the turning point as they clinched golds in the Olympic events (duet and team) for the first time.