AS GOOD AS IT GETS

Synchronized swimming first became an Olympic sport in 1984. In the early years, competition was held for solo, duet and team events, with the United States, Canada and Japan winning all the medals. In 1996, solo and duet were dropped from the program, with the USA winning the team gold.

By 2000, duet was reinstated and has remained with team as the current program. Then in 2017, synchronized swimming changed its name to artistic swimming.

One thing, though, that hasn’t changed since the turn of the century is the domination of Russia, which has won every gold medal possible. And Russia is poised to keep it that way in 2021.

Leading the way are Svetlana Romashina and Svetlana Kolesnichenko, who have never won a medal of any other color at the Olympics, World Championships or European Championships.

Most recently at the Europeans in May, the duo continued to dominate, earning one perfect mark in their duet free final, the only perfect score of the competition. The last time any judge handed out a perfect score came in 2010!

“It was such a happy moment when we saw the 10, because it is not so usual you can see that mark,” Kolesnischenko said. “It was so great. Seconds before Svetlana said to me, ‘Maybe 10’—and when I realized there was a 10 on the scoreboard—I said, ‘Look at this, Svetlana, there is a 10.’

“We hope to see more 10s in the future and, of course, we try to work harder, but now we are happy for the score, for our performance and our routine. And our coach, Tatiana Danchenko, told us the duet was good, so we are really satisfied.”

They also dominated the duet technical final and helped Russia win the team technical gold medal, beating Ukraine and Spain.

“It was good enough for this win, only,” Romashina said. “Our coach saw some mistakes that we need to correct if we want to win at the Olympics. This was a strong performance, but we need to improve. This gold medal is what we came here for, so we are

AS GOOD AS IT GETS happy with that.” DESTINED FOR GREATNESS Both Romashina and Kolesnichenko have accumulated a stockpile of gold medals throughout their careers. Russia is a perfect 10-for-10, winning every Olympic gold medal possible in Romashina’s five Olympic gold medals (three team and two duet since 2008) ties her for the most in her artistic swimming—duet and team— sport with Anastasia Davydova and since the turn of the century. Natalia Ishchenko, also from Russia. The 31-year-old also has won 21 gold BY DAN D’ADDONA medals at the World Championships dating back to 2005 and has 12 first-place finishes at the European Championships since 2006. Kolesnichenko, 27, has won only one Olympic gold medal—as a member of Russia’s winning team in 2016—but she has 26 gold medals between Worlds (16 since 2011) and Europeans (10 since 2014). She teamed with Romashina to win the duet competition at the 2013 and 2019 World Championships, and the duo will be favored to win in Tokyo. The two seemed destined to compete together from the very start: “I vividly remember that day,” Kolesnichenko told FINA, referring to when Romashina first asked her to join her in duet. “I was driving a car and received a text message from Sveta: ‘Would you like to join me in the duet? It’s not a joke.’ “I was shocked, surprised and flattered by the attention paid to me. I knew that to be a part of the first-ranked Russian synchro duet is a huge responsibility. But I could hardly refuse such an offer. Many thanks to Sveta and Tatiana Danchenko for their choice.” Romashina, who gave birth to a daughter following the 2016 Rio Olympic Games before returning to win three gold medals at the 2019 World Championships, spoke to The Olympic Channel about her artistic swimming success: “I love synchro. It’s my life. It’s my job,” she said. “I know that I will do anything to win.” And as they have proved so often, these two Golden Girls—as well as their Russian teammates—will be tough to beat next month, Aug. 2-7, in Tokyo. v