In the competitions, held at the Paris Aquatics Centre, Chinese athletes won Gold medals in the team and pairs routines. With these two gold medals in Paris, China consolidates its position as the great dominator of artistic swimming,  culminating a work "of generations", as their coaches recalled. They won seven of the eleven gold medals that were disputed at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha earlier this year. This was the first competition, where the rules were changed, which has raised the level and difficulty of world competitions.

Teams

The acrobatic team routine resulted in gold for China, silver for the United States and bronze for Spain. They were followed by Japan and the country of origin, France, who were just a few points behind Spain.

The gold medal went to the Chinese team, who took first place accumulating a total of 996.1389. In second place was the United States with a total of 914.3421 points, a difference of 81.7968 points. Finally in third place was the Spanish team with 900.7319 points.

In fourth place was the French team with 886.8001 points, followed by the Japanese team with 880.6841 points. In sixth place was the Canadian team with 859.2229, in seventh place was Mexico with 853.7932 points, who made it back to a final since 1996 at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.  Finally, Italy (845.9670 points) was eighth, followed by Australia (728.4358 points) and in last place. The only African team in the final was Egypt, who finished with 705.9814 points.

China joins the list of countries that have won a gold medal in this category. There are now four countries: Russia leads with 10 gold medals, followed by the United States with five, Canada with three and now China with one.

The gold medal caps three dominant years for the nation since Tokyo 2020. At the World Championships prior to Budapest 2022, the country had won only one gold medal in forty-nine years of competition. Also, China won technical team swimming and acrobatic team swimming at Fukuoka 2023, before sweeping technical team swimming, free team swimming and acrobatic team swimming at Doha 2024.

In pairs

And in pairs, gold also went to China, while silver went to Great Britain and bronze to the Netherlands. Artistic swimming duo Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi won the first ever Olympic gold medal for the People's Republic of Chinain the women's duet event.

Although they came fourth in the free duet event, the 27-year-old Chinese twins scored a cumulative score of 566.4783 points. This gave them a 7.9416-point lead over Great Britain (558.5367), the Netherlands (558.3963) and Austria (555.6678). Great Britain's Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe had the best score in the free duet with 294.5085 points, but the win is all the more valuable considering they finished 14th in Tokyo.

Dutch twins Bregje de Brouwer and Noortje de Brouwer took bronze. They put on a tribute show to their country's painter Vincent van Gogh that covered his entire life, including his descent into madness and even the part where he tore off his ear. 

Ukraine also competed, and sisters Maryna Aleksiiva and Vladyslava Aleksiiva showed their responsibility to represent their nation at and bring joy to their people. The routine was "life is a series of ups and downs and that after every fall you can take off again, that every rise begins with a fall, and that every success is the result of a failure" stated the sisters. They scored 278.2084 points, a season's best. Ukraine finished fifth with 538.6684 points. 

Spain also drew inspiration from their art: Alisa Ozhogina and Iris Tio paid homage to Antonio Gaudi's Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona - close to their training centre. Spain finished seventh overall with 521.4837 points.