Courtesy: European Aquatics
Day three of the European Aquatics Artistic Swimming Championships Funchal 2025 saw Spain continue its stronghold on the competition, successfully defending its mixed duet free and team technical titles while Italy made headlines of its own in claiming a first European duet title.
As in the duet technical earlier this week, none of the medallists from last year’s European Aquatics Championships were present in the duet free final, making it a wide-open competition.
Italy’s Enrica Piccoli and Lucrezia Ruggiero rose to the occasion and delivered an outstanding routine that secured them their place in the history books.
With the highest declared difficulty of the field (55.30), they had a very strong swim to their Hypnosis-themed routine and delivered under pressure to take gold with 250.6683, claiming a landmark duet gold.
Spain’s Iris Tio Casas and Lilou Lluis Valette, both team bronze medallists at the Paris 2024 Olympics, claimed silver with 248.3325 for their routine themed around The Essence of Femininity.
Despite receiving a basemark, their execution and artistic impression were outstanding, and earning more than 10 points more than the Italians in the latter caegory almost kept them at the top. This pairing, new for 2025, has already seen success on the World Cup circuit and will be one to watch in the future.
The big surprise of the day came from Germany, as Klara Bleyer and Amelie Blumenthal Haz captured bronze with 237.0950, giving the country its first duet medal at the European Championships since 1983.
Their beautifully interpreted -routine to the music from the movie Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was the premiere of this new choreography, and what a debut it was. Following Bleyer’s historic solo gold the day before, Germany’s rise in artistic swimming is becoming one of the most exciting storylines of the year.
“We are very overwhelmed, it was a total surprise for us,” Bleyer said. “We are very happy and we are looking forward to work even harder.
“In general, we tried with this free routine to be more artistic, especially in the legs movements, because it’s more of our strength right now. We tried to give the judges different poses and not do the same movements, and, it has paid off today.”
The mixed duet free final saw a repeat of the 2024 podium in terms of countries, but with new partnerships across the board and a continuing, fierce battle between reigning champions Spain, Italy and Great Britain.
Spain’s Dennis Gonzalez Boneu and Iris Tio Casas took gold with 290.4242, swimming to Babe I’m Gonna Leave You by Led Zeppelin. One of the most highly anticipated routines of the day, it certainly didn’t disappoint.
Despite having the lowest declared difficulty among the medalists, the Spanish pair delivered a sultry and emotionally charged performance that stood out for its execution and interpretation.
Artistic impression made the difference, highlighted by a gap of more than 20 points over the silver medallists of Italy and a perfect 10 in performance. It was also a second medal of the morning for Tio Casas, who had claimed duet silver shortly before.
“It’s only our third time competing together, so this whole thing is amazing,” Gonzalez Boneu said. “It’s an incredible, artistic routine, and every competition we try to make it better and better. I love to swim with Iris, she’s fantastic. I think she’s the best on our team, so swimming with her is amazing for me. I have improved a lot, she makes me better.”
Italy’s Filippo Pelati and Lucrezia Ruggiero, the latter also fresh off the duet competition, showcased their technical prowess with a passionate Tango-themed routine. They had declared the highest degree of difficulty (45.55) and pushed Spain to the very edge, ultimately earning silver with 288.8300.
This was their second medal together this week following the bronze earned in the mixed duet technical, and a sign that this new pair is quickly establishing itself among Europe’s elite.
“We are so happy,” Ruggiero said. “We are a new duet, and we have been working together for such a short time. So, it has been so emotional and hard, but we are improving every day.
“Now maybe I need to rest, but I will tell you, right now, I have so many emotions, because this competition is in a short time. So I’m happy about today, about how I prepared mentally, and how focused I was.”
Great Britain’s Ranjuo Tomblin and Holly Hughes rounded out the podium with bronze for their engaging and theatrical Snakes routine, scoring 283.0990. Already European Junior bronze medallists in this event, their chemistry and creative presentation continued to shine at the senior level.
“It’s a great experience for us,” Hughes said. “This is our first senior Europeans together, so we’ve come up with a good result. Our routine went quite well with the way that we planned out, especially as we’ve been to previous World Cups in the year, so we’ve worked on the bits that went wrong to try and get a good result here.”
The afternoon session closed with the team technical final and, once again, Spain showed why it remains the team to beat. The defending champions from 2023 and 2024, the Spanish squad made it three consecutive titles in this event with a confident, infectious and high-energy performance to Rock Your Body by the Backstreet Boys.
A score of 290.3810 secured Spain’s fifth gold of these Championships so far, a total that leaves them beyond reach at the top of the medals table.
“We feel very happy, our performance today went well and we enjoyed it a lot,” Paula Ramirez said. “We have been working hard on our artistic impression. Someone from has also worked with Cirque du Soleil and other shows has come to help us on our interpretation and performance. All this work on the artistic side allows us to have fun and enjoy our routines more.”
Ukraine claimed silver, marking its first medal of these championships. The 2022 European champions in this event fielded a very different, much younger roster this time, with several athletes making their senior European debut.
Their routine, themed around bringing “a good mood through life,” was light, upbeat, and full of energy. The team scored 266.2233, a strong performance and a promising sign for the future of this squad.
“This performance feels so amazing, we have a lot of emotions right now,” Oleksandra Goretska said. “This was really amazing. We stayed together, and we really felt like a team. We trained a lot for this, it has been very hard, and we felt united and strong to achieve this result today.”
Bronze went to France, returning to the European podium in this event after skipping the 2024 edition. Bronze medallists in 2023 and fourth at the Paris Olympic Games, the French brought a relatively new team to Funchal as well, with only two Olympians in the line-up for this routine.
Their DJ Set choreography was vibrant, playful, and irresistibly catchy, earning 265.7233 and showing that, even in transition, this team always remains a European contender.
“We’re really proud of ourselves because we’ve improved a lot since the last World Cup,” Claudia Janvier said. “We’ve worked a lot on our artistic impression, and increased our difficulty for this competition, it paid off. We are really happy, and excited to do even better tomorrow.”
The first stand-alone Championships end tomorrow with the women’s solo technical and men’s solo technical finals starting at 09.00, followed by the team acrobatic final at 16.00.
