2021 European Aquatics Championships: Hausding Claims First 3m Synchro Gold With Rudiger

by Liz Byrnes - Europe Correspondent

14 May 2021, 04:17am

Patrick Hausding claimed his 17th continental title and his first gold in the 3m synchro when he partnered Lars Rudiger to victory at the European Aquatics Championships at the Duna Arena.

Hausding won his first continental title in Eindhoven in 2008 and has since accumulated 30 medals including nine straight 10m synchro golds.

However, silver in Berlin in 2014 followed by bronze at the Glasgow European Championships four years later had been his best performance in the 3m synchro until Thursday when the German pair clinched the title with 426.78pts.

Photo Courtesy: Pasquale Mesiano / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Evgenii Kuznetsov and Nikita Sleikher of Russia won silver with 415.47 with Ukraine’s Oleksandr Gorshkovozov and Oleg Kolodiy clinching bronze with 409.92.

It was the second gold in as many days for Hausding who won the 1m on Wednesday.

Hausding said:

“It was a phenomenal performance tonight.

“The difference compared to yesterday is that in this event never before was I the European champion, despite I’m already 32.

“Finally I found my partner to achieve that gold.

“We had three European Championships so far together, the first was a bronze, the second was a silver, and now we claimed the gold.

“We are super happy, we even had one big mistake at the end but despite of that we were able to get this medal and this gold makes us being even more motivated for the Olympics.”

There was the first 1-2 finish of the Championships for Russia in the women’s 10m as 16-year-old Anna
Konanykhina and Iulia Timoshinina claimed gold and silver respectively.

Photo Courtesy: Pasquale Mesiano / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Konanykhina executed a difficult programme and despite two relatively erroneous dives, the high degrees of difficulty and the quality of her other three earned her top spot with 365.25.

Her final dive scored her 86.40 which was the highest score of the final and represented a complete turnaround from the prelims where she finished 11th.

She said:

“I am absolutely happy. I dreamed of standing on the podium and feeling that I could show my best dives but I never imagined winning the gold medal.

“This is my second senior competition, the first one was the Olympic Qualification Tournament two weeks ago.

“At this European Championships I improved for my personal best by more than 20 points.”
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Timoshinina was leading by 20 points after three rounds but she faltered on her last two attempts but held on to silver with 329.20.

Britain’s Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix – also 16 – claimed her second medal of the competition when she took bronze with 326.60 ahead of far-more experienced competitors including Ukraine’s Sofia Lyskun who came first in the prelims and Celine van Duijn from the Netherlands, winner of the last two editions.

Artistic Swimming

Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Perottino / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Russia’s duet of Svetlana Romashina and Svetlana Kolesnichenko added another gold to their tally
in the technical final which was postponed from Monday.

The pair collected 96.2904pts ahead of the Ukraine duo of Marta Fiedina and Anastasiya Savchuk who earned 92.6862.

In third came two of the Alexandri triplets – Anna Maria and Eirini – who recalled the days of the 1980s when Austria was among the leading nations in the sport.

They earned Austria its first medal in this discipline in 34 years with 89.4592.

Romashina’s treasury now contains 12 European titles while Kolesnichenko’s account stands at 10 – both in as many finals.

Romashina said:

“Every medal is great, makes your day great. I could say that I remember all the medals, but I think this medal I’m going to remember more because of the postponement caused by the problems with underwater speakers.

“We understand it was nobody’s fault, it is just something that can happen. I think we have to be very happy today, but we need to work more, because there are some little mistakes that we have to fix.”

Koleschniko added:

“My motivation to keep fighting for the gold medals is my partner because she is a mother.

“While I rest she is at home working so she is my idol. Every day I look at her and I admire all that she does. She is so great and so cool, and she is an inspiration for me to work even harder.”

The afternoon session marked a win for Ukraine in the team free combination in an event in which the Russians didn’t compete.

Ukraine amassed 94.7000 ahead of Greece (89.1000) and Belarus (86.0667).

Maryna Aleksiiva of Ukraine said:

Photo Courtesy: Pasquale Francesco Mesiano / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

“We are very happy. I think this was the best performance of this routine so far. We must say that we like it more than the rest of our team.

“It is beautiful, there is a lot of us so it is powerful, very artistic and expressive.

“It’s titled ‘Magic Castle’ and it is what we tried to bring to life in the water.

“This is Ukraine’s second gold after Marta’s win (Marta Fiedina in the solo technical) here at the Europeans.

“Tomorrow we have the team free. We practised that programme during the entire lockdown period.

“It is the hardest routine of our lives but also very beautiful, full of artistry, yet different.

“We would be happy with the score of 94-95 points and improve it from there.”

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