Solo synchronized swimmer Vasiliki Alexandri is in top form. The 26-year-old lived up to her role as favourite and won the European Championship final on Tuesday in the Technical freestyle in Belgrade the European Championship titleAfter two bronze medals at the European Championships in Rome in 2022, this is her next European Championship medal, the first title of her career.
The goal, Vasiliki Alexandri had said beforehand, was “not just a medal”, but gold. She won it with 260.5967 points, well ahead of the German Klara Bleyer and the Dutchwoman Marloes Steenbeek – in a somewhat weakened field. Because some of the nations are already concentrating fully on the duet and team competitions at the Olympic Games in Paris and therefore skipped the solo competitions at the European Championships in Belgrade.
According to the trainer Albena Mladenova,comes on Thursday in Solo final of the free program another medal for her athlete.
Another failure of the sisters
As at the World Championships in Doha in February, all Austrian hopes in synchronized swimming at the European Swimming Championships in Belgrade are pinned on soloist Vasiliki Alexandri. On Saturday, the duet had to Eirini and Anna-Maria Alexandri had to cancel their European Championship appearance due to illness, and they had missed the World Cup in Qatar due to a shoulder injury to their triplet sister Anna-Maria.
Die World Champions in the free program last summer, they had to miss the second major event. The World Cup victories in the free program at the beginning of May in the Olympic pool in Paris and in the new technical program to the music of “We will rock you” in Canada at the beginning of June provide motivation for the upcoming Olympic Games.
Another medal chance
Vasiliki Alexandri will also on Thursday in the final of the free program swim for a medal. On Monday she was the best in the preliminary round and made it into the final.
In this year’s two World Cup competitions in Doha had only managed sixth place. A OSV-Protest against the score in the free program was rejected. “It was a very difficult moment for me,” says Vasiliki Alexandri about what she considers to be an unfair score.
Last year in Fukuoka, Vasiliki Alexandri had won twice WM-Silber ithe highlight of your career so far.
The synchronized swimmers had already emphasized back then that she and her sisters, who emigrated to Austria from their homeland of Greece as teenagers, subordinate everything to sport. “We have sacrificed things our whole lives for this sport. Because it is what we love,” Vasiliki Alexandri said recently in an interview with KURIER about the sacrifices she had to make for her career.