Singapore 2025: Tio Casas earns third gold on final day of artistic swimming as Spain win most world medals
Spain’s Iris Tio Casas won her third gold medal of the World Aquatics Championships as she partnered Dennis Gonzalez to victory in the mixed duet free on the final day of the artistic swimming programme.
And the concluding event of the team acrobatic saw a selection including Gonzalez bring Spain’s final medal total to nine – more than any other nation – as they took bronze behind defending champions China and the neutral athlete representatives.
Spain, who finished with three golds, two silvers and four bronzes – finished third in a medals table topped by China, whose seven-medal total included four golds, and Neutral Athletes B, whose eight medals included three golds and three silvers.
The mixed duet free was closely contested, with the Spanish pair, who scored five perfect 10s for impression, finishing just 0.4125 clear with their total of 323.8563.
Thirty-year-old Aleksandr Maltsev, who partnered Olesia Platonova, thus missed out narrowly on a fourth gold after his victories in the men’s solo free and technical finals and mixed duet technical.
Great Britain earned its first medal of the Championships as the new pairing of Paris 2024 silver medallist Isabelle Thorpe and 19-year-old Ranjuo Tomblin finished third, just 1.7980 behind the winners.
It was Gonzalez’s first gold in the event after earning bronze in 2023 and silver in 2024 with Mireia Hernandez.
Gonzalez told World Aquatics: “It’s a dream for us because we knew that [Neutral Athletes B] were coming so we knew that it would be difficult to stay on top but we fought for this all year.”
Reflecting upon a year in which Spanish artistic swimmers have been guided by Andrea Fuentes, who won Olympic silver in this event in 2008 and 2012 and guided the United States to team silver at the Paris 2024 Games, he added: “We tried to start at the beginning of this Olympic cycle, doing our best to keep our names at the top of the competition.
“We’re so happy with our improvement this year but it’s not the end because we have a lot of things to improve. We will fight to do better.”
Tio Casas commented: “We feel very proud. We are happy that we can finish the season with a happy ending. Probably a lot of people of Spain will see this and we can be an example for little kids.”
Thorpe said she and Tomblin had been “a little disappointed” at missing a medal by one place in the mixed duet technical event, adding: “But we managed to turn it around, so we’re really happy.
“Ranjuo has been to a lot of competitions this year, every World Cup and junior European competition, so he has had a very busy schedule.
“I was doing my third year of university as well, so we didn’t have a lot of time together leading up to this competition, but we managed to do quite well with the time we had.”
Italy’s 18-year-old Filippo Pelati and Lucrezia Ruggiero, bronze medallists in the mixed duet technical, finished fourth.
Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics
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