World Championships Diary, Gwangju, July 17, 2019: Romashina Claims 20th Gold

Svetlana Romashina won her 20th world championship gold medal. Photo Courtesy: R-Sport / MIA Rossiya Segodnya

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The the 2019 World Championships in Aquatics is underway in Gwangju, Korea. Each day through the event, Swimming World will bring you a round-up of news items in brief beyond our main coverage in our World Championships Diary.

Check out more of our complete World Championship coverage here.

Artistic Swimming

Romashina wins 20th world championship gold

Russia’s Svetlana Romashina claimed her 20th World Championship gold medal this evening at the 18th FINA World Championships in Gwangju, Korea.

In the Free Solo event contested tonight, Svetlana won the title only once before at the 2013 Barcelona World Championships. Tonight, there was never a question about Romashina being the best.

Svetlana’s routine “Carmen” is based upon one of the most popular Opera’s. She swam to music composed by John Bizet, and true to the character of the fiery gypsy Carmen in the Opera, Svetlana swam passionately, intense, powerful, seducing the audience with her smile and facial expressions. Her patterns and leg sequences throughout the routine were beautifully executed. Romashina’s score, 97.1333, raised the bar in Artistic Swimming and was worthy of the gold medal, Russia’s fifth gold medal at these FINA World Championships.

Spain’s Ona Carbonell, winner of the silver medal in the Technical Solo event earlier this week, in which she expressed a personal message of the power of sport to make the world a better place, brought the audience yet another personal message with her routine themed “Women Rule”, ironically swam to the song “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”. With 94.5667 points, Ona claimed the silver medal, her twenty-third World Championship medal.

Check out the rest of the results here.

Open Water

Hannah Moore reflects on bronze

American Hannah Moore was thrilled with her tie for the bronze medal in the 5K. It was her first breakout performances, something she has watched teammates Haley Anderson and Ashley Twichell do on numerous occasions.

“This has by far exceeded my expectations,” Moore told The Associated Press. “I knew it would be really rough, just based on watching the other races. The girls went out really fast, so I tried to stay calm and be a little braver than I wanted to be, and it worked out in the end. Watching Haley (Anderson) win a silver medal in the 10k and to see that she and Ashley (Twichell) both achieved the Olympic qualification in the 10k really fired me up,”I just got into this sport last year and I’m kind of learning from them.”

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