Heo Yoon-seo ranked fourth with 185.9500 points in the artistic swimming solo pre-qualifying round for the 2023 World Swimming Championships held at Marine Messe Fukuoka Hall in Fukuoka, Japan, on the 17th.
On this day, Heo Yoon-seo performed a spectacular performance that was not inferior to the world’s top athletes, and scored 83.3000 points in art and 102.6500 points in performance.
It is 67.2353 points apart from 253.1853 points of Inui Yukiko (32, Japan), the “defending champion” who ranked first in the preliminary round.
However, the gap with third-place Evangelia Platanioti (28, Greece) is only 13.5334 points. Plataniotti, the bronze medalist in the event at the 2022 Budapest Games, scored 199.4834 points in the preliminary round.
Kate Shortman (21, UK) came in second with 213.8417.
Heo Yoon-seo will challenge to win the first world championship medal in Korean artistic swimming history in the solo free final at 7:30 p.m. on the 19th.
On the previous day, Lee Ri-young (22, Busan Swimming Federation) ranked “9th” in the solo technical final, tying the highest ranking ever achieved by Choi Yu-jin at the 1998 Perth Games in Australia.
Heo Yoon-seo has already become the first Korean to advance to the finals in the artistic swimming solo free category since 2013 when the current scoring system was introduced.
The previous best solo free performance was Lee Ri-young’s 14th place (preliminary round) in Budapest last year.
Lee Ri-young has achieved the feat of reaching the final of the solo free category in 14 years since Park Hyun-sun, who ranked 12th in the solo free at the 2009 Rome Games. At that time, artistic swimming was called “synchronized swimming.”
Heo Yoon-seo finished fourth in the preliminary round and virtually booked the highest ranking in the history of Korean artistic swimming solo at the World Swimming Championships.
Solo techniques must include ‘set essential components’ (elements) in the performance.
Free is creative and free to act.
Heo Yun-seo wrote a new history of Korean artistic swimming with free gestures.