Three-time World champion\u00a0Mayya Doroshko\u00a0and new partner\u00a0Elizaveta Minaeva, who won Women\u2019s Duet Free silver together at the Medellin World Cup in Colombia last month, claimed their first title as a pair with victory in the Women\u2019s Duet Tech event at the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup in Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doroshko-Minaeva then returned to the water a few hours later for a highly entertaining Team Free contest, where they would again top the podium as part of their eight-strong national squad line-up.\u00a0China\u00a0claimed silver and host\u00a0France, to the delight of the home fans, took bronze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the day\u2019s other events,\u00a0Vasilina Khandoshka\u00a0in the Women\u2019s Solo Tech and\u00a0Guo Muye\u00a0in the Men\u2019s Solo Tech claimed the respective titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the highly-anticipated highlights in the 28-strong line-up for the Women\u2019s Duet Technical event was the appearance of Great Britain\u2019s\u00a0Kate Shortman\u00a0and\u00a0Izzy Thorpe, who were competing for the first time together since winning silver at Paris 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Somewhat aptly their return was taking place in the French capital, some 19 months on from the moment they claimed their nation\u2019s first-ever Olympic medal in the sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much has changed within the world of artistic swimming over that period and while Thorpe made a strong impression with new Mixed Duet partner\u00a0Ranjuo Tomblin\u00a0last season, winning World and European honours, Shortman was making her first international appearance since the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were the second to last pair to take to the water, with Doroshko-Minaeva\u00a0having already produced a sublime performance full of power and precision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They attained a combined score of 299.8376, while\u00a0Kira Cherezova-Valentina Gerasimova\u00a0had also delivered a more than competitive score of 290.5550 for their\u00a0\u2018Fun Girls\u2019<\/em>\u00a0performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experienced USA pair\u00a0Anita Alvarez-Jaime Czarkowski\u00a0held third until Shortman-Thorpe, debuting their new \u2018Last Dance\u2019 themed routine \u2013 in tribute to their display at Paris 2024 \u2013 attained a podium securing score of 287.8250.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The duets from Germany (Klara Bleyer-Amelie Marianne Blumenthal Haz) and Italy (Lucrezia Ruggiero-Flaminia Vernice), who were highly fancied to contest for Technical medals, were each hit with base marks and as a result finished well short of the podium places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The highly enthusiastic supporters gathered in the stands in their masses for the final contest of the opening day of competition in Paris and they were treated to a series of innovative performances from the five nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As with much of the day, those lining up for Neutral Athletes B (NAB) proved to be a class above the rest, with their line-up delivering a commanding performance which attained an overall score of 260.6329 pts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While China is the Olympic champion in the event, their selectors typically use World Cup events away from their homeland as an opportunity to give some of their emerging talents experience competing internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was again the case in Paris, with half of the swimmers who took to the water 16 year of age and the eldest, Wu Yingqiao, 22, making her first appearance at this level since 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China\u2019s score of 238.3467 was enough for silver and while France could have potentially rivalled them, a mistake on their final hybrid denied them that chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 201.9078 points meant they were still deemed worthy of a podium finish and the assembled host nation fans were clearly delighted to witness them receive bronze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first event of the World Cup stop saw 24 athletes take to the waters in what turned out to be a fascinating competition which demonstrated not only established stars, but also a host of emerging talents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That included 14-year-old\u00a0Ana Brontie Chan\u00a0of Hong Kong, who made her World Cup debut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the other end of the spectrum was Olympic, World and Pan American medallist\u00a0Anita Alvarez of the USA ,and although the 29-year-old was not quite able to challenge for a podium finish she will take encouragement from a strong showing and rank of fifth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahead of her, in fourth, was 2025 World Duet silver medallist\u00a0Enrica Piccoli of Italy, who achieved a score of 242.3683, to rank just 0.283 points short of the top-three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That would be topped, in impressive style, by three-time World Championships medallist\u00a0Vasilina Khandoshka, who claimed just her second World Cup win, following success in last season\u2019s Women\u2019s Solo Free event, in Xi\u2019an, China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 24-year-old achieved an overall score of 254.7184 for her\u00a0\u2018Sweet Dreams\u2019<\/em>\u00a0themed routine, which was enough to see her edge ahead of\u00a0Bleyer\u2019s\u00a0\u2018Morning Dawn\u2019\u00a0<\/em>inspired performance, which attained 252.6484.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Completing the top-three was 16-year-old\u00a0Valeriia Plekhanova, who secure the first World Cup medal of her career and delivered a performance which suggested she is a clear \u2018one-to-watch\u2019 throughout the current season and likely beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The nine-strong men\u2019s discipline included a host of regular major medal-winners, including\u00a0China’s Guo Muye, Briton Ranjuo Tomblin,\u00a0Gustavo Sanchez of Colombia,\u00a0Italian Filippo Pelati and the Kazakh duo of Eduard Kim and Viktor Druzin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chinese star\u00a0Muye has established himself as one of the most talented male athletes in the field by claiming 13 World Cup honours across the last two seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There would be another gold added to his collection following the Men\u2019s Solo Technical event in Paris, with the 17-year-old in stunning form. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He attained an overall score of 245.4900 points for his routine, performed to the soundtrack \u2018The Trail\u2019<\/em> from \u2018The Witcher 3\u2019<\/em> in what was his first World Cup in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Britain\u2019s\u00a0Tomblin, who won the event at last year\u2019s competition in Paris, was again in strong form, building off his\u00a0season-opening victory\u00a0in Medellin, Colombia, last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was awarded 238.9359pts, a significant improvement on the 223.8033 he attained in the first World Cup of the season, only this time he would settle for silver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Completing the podium places with a narrow \u2018win\u2019 over team-mate\u00a0Kim\u00a0was Kazakhstan\u2019s\u00a0Druzin, who scored 226.6050 and matched the third-place finish he achieved in Medellin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three-time World champion\u00a0Mayya Doroshko\u00a0and new partner\u00a0Elizaveta Minaeva, who won Women\u2019s Duet Free silver together at the Medellin World<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[315,382],"class_list":["post-10980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-aquatics","tag-artistic-swimming"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mayya-Doroshko-Elizaveta-Minaeva.jpg",2002,1127,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mayya-Doroshko-Elizaveta-Minaeva-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mayya-Doroshko-Elizaveta-Minaeva-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mayya-Doroshko-Elizaveta-Minaeva-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mayya-Doroshko-Elizaveta-Minaeva-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mayya-Doroshko-Elizaveta-Minaeva-1536x865.jpg",1536,865,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mayya-Doroshko-Elizaveta-Minaeva.jpg",2002,1127,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mayya-Doroshko-Elizaveta-Minaeva-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mayya-Doroshko-Elizaveta-Minaeva-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Mayya-Doroshko-Elizaveta-Minaeva.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10982,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10980\/revisions\/10982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Team Free Final \u2013 Further Success for Doroshko and Minaeva<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Women\u2019s Solo Tech Final \u2013 Khandoshka, Bleyer, Plekhanova claim honours<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Men\u2019s Solo Tech Final \u2013 Guo, Tomblin and Druzin secure gold, silver and bronze<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n