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ROME, Italy, July 24. RUSSIA's Natalia Ishchenko and Svetlana Romashina walked away with gold in the duet free finale during synchronized swimming at the FINA World Championships.
The Russian tandem tallied 98.833 points for the win, with 49.5 points from technical merit and 49.333 points from artistic impression.
Spain's Andrea Fuentes and Gemma Mengual gave the Russians nearly all they could handle with a silver-winning 98.333 points. The difference came in technical merit as Spain earned 49 points compared to Russia. Spain and Russia both posted matching 49.333s for artistic impression.
China's Jiang Tingting and Jiang Wenwen completed the podium with 97 points. The pair turned in matching 48.5s in both technical merit and artistic impression.
Canada (95.833), Italy (95.334) and Japan (94) comprised the rest of the top six.
Russia's Anastasia Davydova, Ishchenko, Daria Korobova, Anna Nasekina, Aleksandra Patskevich, Romashina, Alla Shishkina and Anzhelika Timanina led the way in the team free preliminary round with 99 points. Spain (98) and China (97.666) were the other top contenders heading into finals. Notably, the U.S. qualified eighth with 92.167 points.