Singapore 2025: Second title for Tio Casas as Spain and Italy take world gold and silver in women’s duet free

Lilou Lluis Valette and Iris Tio Casas of Spain won the women’s duet free title on the penultimate day of the artistic swimming programme at the World Aquatics Championships. Credit: Antoine Saito/World Aquatics

Iris Tio Casas picked up her second gold at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, and Spain’s seventh medal overall, as she and Lilou Lluis Valette won the women’s duet free title.

Casas, 22, who won world gold as part of Spain’s team technical selection in 2023, earned her first individual world title in the women’s solo free on Tuesday.

She and her 18-year-old partner totalled 282.067 on the penultimate day of the artistic swimming programme, with silver going to Italy’s Lucrezia Ruggiero and Enrica Piccoli on 278.7137.

Neutral athletes Mayya Doroshko and Tatiana Gayday earned bronze on 277.1177 ahead of China’s Yanhan and Yanjun Lin, who scored 274.3090.

“I have no words,” Tio Casas told World Aquatics. “I had a super good feeling before swimming the duet tonight – and I’m super happy because we worked a lot this season and we are getting the results.”

Speaking about Spain’s coach 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, she added: “Andrea brought a lot of positivity and has a lot of confidence in us.

And also she has created choreography that we feel comfortable with and which is very artistic. We find a very good balance in artistry and difficulty. She’s the best coach ever.

“She was my idol. It’s super nice to have her as a coach. She was a really good swimmer, she’s even better as a coach. I think she tries to find her own way to coach, and not follow ‘normal’ coaching. She always wants to follow her values and that’s what I admire the most.”

Reflecting on her new partnership with Lluis Valette, she said:

“We didn’t expect success in our first year, but we have really good chemistry and we enjoy a lot doing this duet. We connect. We’ve made history and we’re super happy. We hope that we have a long future together. It’s just our first year, and if we’ve already done this in our first year, imagine in 10 years.”

There was also some surprise expressed by the Italian pairing.

“We’re a new couple and we’re really happy about what we did today,” said Ruggiero, who had taken mixed duet technical bronze with 18-year-old Filippo Pelati the previous day. “It was an unexpected result and for now we’re very happy. We know we can (still) work a lot on this duet and we’re very happy for it.”

Piccoli added: “When you see the results, you’re not just understanding it in terms of rankings. You see the scores under, and when we saw it, it was such a surprise for us. We didn’t realise we were above some nations like China.”

The artistic swimming programme in Singapore concludes tomorrow with the mixed duet free and team acrobatic events.

Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics

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