Golds for Bleyer, Tomblin and Thorpe at third WA Artistic Swimming World Cup in Xi’an

European athletes earned significant golds in the third leg of the 2026 World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup in Xi’an, with Germany’s Klara Bleyer winning the women’s solo free and Great Britain’s Ranjuo Tomblin and Izzy Thorpe taking the mixed duet technical title.

Bleyer, overall World Cup winner in the women’s solo last year, produced a third victory of the year as she totalled 282.8000.

“For me, it’s (also) a very strange feeling,” Bleyer, who also won women’s solo technical bronze, told World Aquatics. “Because Germany is normally not at this level for artistic swimming so I’m really trying to stay there, but I’m also trying to enjoy everything because you never know how long it’s going to last.”

The British duo were paired together last season after Kate Shortman, with whom Thorpe won duet silver at the Paris 2024 Games, took an extended break.

They won world bronze last summer and began this year’s World Cup in Medellin with mixed duet technical gold with a total of 202.9517 points. In Xi’an they totalled 227.1317.

“I think it’s good that we got the gold medal,” Tomblin said. “We are always looking to improve the score, improve our artistic impression and all of that.”

Thorpe added; “We’re excited to see the video from our performance and see what we can improve on.

“We also want to hear the judges’ feedback and see what we can do to step up the routine to the next competition.” 

Tomblin concluded by saying; “For every competition, we aim to step up and step it up for the European Championships at the end of the season.”

The Britons also took silver in the mixed duet free behind China’s Yixin Cao and Haoyue Shi.

The 20-year-old Tomblin also earned gold in the men’s solo technical ahead of China’s 17-year-old Muye Guo, who beat him to gold in he men’s solo free.

Meanwhile Italy earned bronze in the team technical event.

Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics

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