Alvarez, Koroleva Advance To Synchro Duet Final At 2016 Rio Olympic Games

Alvarez and Koroleva were ninth overall after prelims to move into Tuesday’s free final. The pair scored 86.4612 points in the tech prelim, swimming to a “Modern Violin” theme featuring music by David Garrett. They had 34.2612 points on elements, 26.0000 on impression and 26.2000 on execution.

“We’re pretty happy with our score,” Koroleva said. “I think the swim for us felt pretty energetic, and I thought we were really together. When we came out our coaches were really happy.”

Russia’s Natalia Ishchenko and Svetlana Romashina were first in the tech prelim with 96.4577 points, followed by China’s Xuechen Huang and Wenyan Sun (95.3688) and Ukraine’s Lolita Ananasova and Anna Voloshyna (93.1358).

A day earlier, Alvarez and Koroleva had finished ninth in the free prelim with 86.4333 points. Combined with Monday’s tech score, they qualified for the final in ninth place at 172.8945.

“We are really, really happy. They swam really well. There were minor mistakes, but they covered the pool in an excellent way,” U.S. National Team Coach Lolli Montico said. “They flew really nicely, the spacing was much better and the elements were really good. They improved a lot – that’s the best reward.”

“They did a fantastic job yesterday and today, and it’s great to get rewarded for that and to be able to move up,” USA Synchro CEO Myriam Glez said. “We moved up yesterday and we’re moving up today. Hopefully we can have an even better swim tomorrow and get a higher score.”

The result of the final will be the sum of the free routine final points and the technical routine points from the preliminary phase.

2. China, 95.3688

3. Ukraine, 93.1358

4. Japan, 93.1214

5. Spain, 92.5024

6. Italy, 90.4412

7. Canada, 89.2916

9. France, 86.2824

10. Greece, 85.3550
11. Austria, 85.0637

12. Mexico, 84.9268

13. Switzerland, 83.3366
14. Brazil, 83.3008

15. Kazakhstan, 81.4686

16. Great Britain, 80.7650

17. Colombia, 80.3363
18. Czech Republic, 80.0640
19. Argentina, 79.4829

20. Israel, 79.4488

21. Belarus, 78.9913

22. Slovakia, 78.3607

23. Egypt, 76.5306

24. Australia, 73.6360

1. Russia, 194.5244

2. China, 191.4355

3. Japan, 187.5214

4. Ukraine, 186.6691

5. Spain, 186.2691

6. Italy, 181.5745

7. Canada, 179.3583

8. France, 173.1491

10. Greece, 171.4550

11. Mexico, 170.6601

12. Austria, 170.3304