Artistic swimming continues to draw more young athletes in UAE

Artistic Swimmers from Doubled Sports Club came up with amazing performances while making a winning impression at the end of the Artistic Swimming Union Cup 2024 held at the Hamdan Sports Complex in Dubai.

Leading the charge for gold medals of the Union Cup was the duet of Sofia Mereutsa and Ekaterina Vedenyapina who took gold in the under-12 category of the competition.

Not to be outdone, Stanislava Terenteva looked smooth and subtle on the water as she claimed the gold in the Solo routine of the Youth category.

Hosted and organised by Doubled Sports Club in cooperation with Dubai Sports Council, this was the second edition of the competition that attracted some of the best youth, junior and under-12 artistic swimmers from the UAE.

The Union Cup 2024 presented a competition in figures and free routines among Solo, Duet and Free Team categories.

The top-three finishers from each category were awarded with medals at the Awards Ceremony at the end of the event in the presence of Yaqoob Al Ali and Daria Galkina, the chief organiser of the competition.

Artistic Swimming started to flourish in the UAE after the World League was hosted in December last year at the Hamdan Sports Complex.

This highly-successful competition saw the presence of more than 170 athletes from 14 countries, including World Champions Evangela Platonioti from Greece and Vasilina Khandushka from Belarus. Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Marina Goliadkina and five-time world champion, Anastasia Arkhipovskaya were technical controllers of the event.

Despite the complexity of a sport like artistic swimming that requires advanced swimming skills and great strength and flexibility, more and more athletes have become involved in this sport in the UAE.