BEIJING, April 24 -- Hosts China proved its strength in the Synchronized Swimming China Open on Sunday by sweeping all the seven gold medals on offer in the four-day competition.
The China Open, which serves as a warm up for the world championships to be held in Shanghai in July, attracts players from Austria, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands and China. But none of the foreign countries entered team events.
"There were only four foreign countries here and none of them participated in the team events, so the China Open for us was only a chance to test our players," said Zhang Xiaohuan, coach of the Chinese team. "The clean sweep doesn't mean anything."
As the only participant in the free combination team, China scored 48.000 points in technical and 48.000 in artistic impression to collect 96.000 and took the title.
"We still have some problems," said Zhang. "We will deal with the problems in the following days to prepare for the World Championships."
China also claimed the titles of technical routine team and free routine team.
In the technical routine solo, Chinese Sun Wenyan won the title in 94.666 on Sunday, while Austria's Nadine Brandl took the silver in 86.000. Ruzmetova Anastasiya of Uzbekistan finished third in 82.667.
In the free routine duet, Chinese duo Liu Ou/Luo Qian finished first in 94.834, while Anna Kulkina/Aigerim Zhexembinova of Kazakhstan took the silver in 88.833. Elisabeth Sneeuw/Nicolien Wellen of the Netherlands settled for the bronze in 87.000.
The hosts also claimed the titles in the technical routine duet by Liu Ou/Huang Xuechen on Saturday and free routine solo by Huang Xuechen on Friday.