Italy and Ukraine battle for the first European Championship gold in artistic swimming

Five days of waiting and Rome will officially become the capital of European aquatics where 1,500 athletes from 50 nations will compete to win one or more of the 231 medals up for grabs in the 77 finals.

If the swimming competition kicks off the European Championships on 11 August with the men's and women's heats starting at 9:00, it will be artistic swimming that will open the contention for the medals table. At the Nicola Pietrangeli Stadium of the Foro Italico sporting facility, the technical team routine will assign the first Roma 2022 gold medal, with the final scheduled for 15:00, two hours before the official Opening Ceremony of the European Championships.

With Russia unable to defend in Rome the title they won in 2021, Italy, world bronze medallists in Budapest last June, and Ukraine, the European silver medallists who withdrew at the recent World Championships at the last minute, will be the ones to fight for the podium. It will be a good challenge between two teams that know each other very well. Since 8 March, after the outbreak of the war, athletes and staff of the national artistic swimming team have been hosted by the Italian Swimming Federation first at the Frecciarossa Federal Sporting Centre in Ostia, and then in Savona, where the two national teams have continued to work and train together for the 2022 world and the European championships.

Among the other podium contenders there will be France, Greece, Israel, Great Britain, Switzerland, all finalist teams at the Budapest 2022 world championships, and the outsiders Serbia. Only Spain, third at last year's European championships, will be missing from the technical team routine among the strongest teams. For Roma 2022 they have decided to take part in the single and duets events only.

COMPETITION PROGRAMME ON 11 AUGUST

It starts at 9:00 at the Swimming Stadium with the men trying to get through the heats of the 50m butterfly, 400m individual medley, 100m breaststroke and the 4x200m freestyle relay. The women will seek qualification in the 100m freestyle, 200m backstroke, 4x200m freestyle relay, and 800m freestyle.
At 9.30, at the Nicola Pietrangeli Stadium, it will be the turn of the synchronettes with the preliminaries of the solo free, followed at 15:00 by the technical team final.
At 18, the first medals will be awarded in the men's 400m freestyle, and the men's and women's 4x200m freestyle relays.

Photos Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto Use of photographs is only permitted for publications registered for editorial purposes. Credits must be mentioned.