Why did the defending champion of the Chinese team suddenly face a comeback? Decrypting the New Rules of Figure Swimming: Swimming Between Heaven and Hell Action | Ernst&Young | Defending Champion
Fukuoka, Japan, July 16 (Xinhua) - From finishing 12th in the preliminary round to winning the gold medal in women's synchronized swimming at the Fukuoka Swimming World Championships, the Japanese duo Bijiameng/Zhenbai An smiled brightly. However, the defending champions Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi from the Chinese team, who ranked first in the preliminary round, were penalized points in the final and unfortunately ranked fourth. What is the reason for such a disruptive reversal? The answer is: new rules.
On July 16th, Wang Liuyi/Wang Qianyi participated in the competition. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xia Yifang
At the beginning of 2023, the World Swimming Federation implemented a new version of synchronized swimming rules with the aim of making each movement and its combination more standardized and standardized, and promoting quantitative scoring. The technical manual has been increased from the original one to the current thick four. However, the rules are constantly changing, and two weeks before the start of the Fukuoka World Championships, the bonus points for the collective formation change were updated; The updated version of the action code explanation was only released two days before the start of the game, and the teams were unaware... Every rule change was like a domino, triggering constant changes in the preparation of each team.
The most important change of the new rules is that once athletes make mistakes in their movements during the competition and fail to complete the declared difficulty score, they will be relegated back to the benchmark score, falling from heaven to hell in one step.
The women's doubles technical self selection competition at this World Championships is the best example. 15-year-old Bijia Meng and 24-year-old An Yongzhen Bai made mistakes in their movements during the preliminaries, with points deducted for both difficulty and completion. They finished 12th with a total score of 215.2700 and barely made it to the finals. In the final, they were the first to appear, without any medal pressure. They only wanted to show off to their family and friends at their doorstep. Unexpectedly, the two of them had zero mistakes and achieved the highest score in terms of difficulty and completion of their movements. They won the championship with a score of 273.9500, igniting the entire competition.
Japanese duo Shin Bai An Yong/Bijia Meng competed in the competition. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xia Yifang
Wang Qianyi and Wang Liuyi ranked first in the preliminary round, with a total score of 280.3334, which is enough to win the championship in the final. In the final, their performance "Lotus" received the highest artistic score of the entire competition, but they were penalized in terms of difficulty and completion of the movements, ultimately ranking fourth with 249.4099 points.
The sisters did not know where their mistakes were at the first time after the game. Wang Qianyi said, "From the perspective of performance, we did not feel that there were any movement errors, and the reason for the deduction of points still depends on technical analysis." Wang Liuyi rationally added, "This is competitive sports, everything is possible, which fully proves that under the new rules, all teams are standing on the same starting line. We will continue to work hard in the upcoming matches."
Wang Liuyi/Wang Qianyi appeared in the competition. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xia Yifang
After the game, the coaching team of the Chinese team found the technical control to inquire about the reason for the difficulty being penalized back to the benchmark score. The response given by the technical control was that during the sprint in the first leg combination, the athlete did not pause enough, so the difficulty was penalized back to the benchmark score, and the score for completing the action was correspondingly reduced.
Zhang Xiaohuan, the head coach of the Chinese synchronized swimming team, said, "The new rules and scoring system have brought a lot of uncertainty and challenges to everyone. We have been working hard to study and learn the new rules, finding a balance between difficulty and skill. We will learn from the lessons and continue to strive for victory."
Original news analysis | New rules for synchronized swimming: swimming between heaven and hell
