SINGAPORE, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Artistic swimming opened on Friday at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, with China's Xu Huiyan leading the women's solo technical preliminaries and twin sisters Lin Yanhan and Lin Yanjun taking second in the duet technical.
19-year-old Xu led the field with 265.8984 points, emerging first among 35 swimmers. Competing as a neutral international athlete, Vasilina Khandoshka came in second, followed by Spain's Iris Tio Casas in third.
"It was a pretty stable performance," said Xu, who won five gold medals at the FINA Artistic Swimming World Cup Super Final in Xi'an last month. "I was a little nervous before the performance because the water temperature here is slightly lower than what I'm used to. I was worried it might affect my ability to execute certain moves, so it's important to warm up well."
"Overall, I've increased my degree of difficulty, so I was quite excited to perform the routine," she added.
The final will be held on Saturday, and Xu is considered one of the favorites. "It's both a source of motivation and pressure," she said. "I just hope to perform to the best of my ability and reflect the training I've put in. I take each routine one at a time."
In the women's duet technical event, the Lin sisters made minor errors but still secured second place with a score of 301.0933. The Alexandri sisters Anna-Maria and Eirini-Marina of Austria took the lead with 305.1684.
"We had some mistakes in our second move," admitted Lin Yanhan. "It's our first World Championships, and we felt a little nervous."
The women's duet technical final is scheduled for Monday.
Earlier on Friday, China's men's water polo team beat Singapore 21-8 in the 13-16th Classification pool. ■
