Artistic swimming duo Lee Ri-young (23-Busan Swimming Federation) and Heo Yoon-seo (18-Apgu Jeong-go) will not compete in any solo events at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships to focus on qualifying for the Paris Olympics. The Korean Swimming Federation hopes their choice and focus will lead to South Korea’s first Olympic appearance in artistic swimming in 12 years since sisters Park Hyun-sun and Park Hyun-ha at London 2012.Lee and Heo departed for Doha, Qatar, at 0:05 a.m. on Aug. 28.The Doha 2024 World Championships, which qualify for the Paris Olympics, will begin on Feb. 2. Eighteen teams have qualified for the artistic swimming duet event at the Paris Olympics. The 10 nations that qualified for the team event and the five teams that won the continental championships will be the first to qualify, with the remaining tickets distributed according to the results of the Doha World Championships.

Duet pairs from countries that have qualified for the team event are likely to be among the top performers at the World Championships, so if they reach the final (top 12) at the Doha World Championships, they are likely to qualify for the Paris Olympics .At last year’s World Championships in Fukuoka, Heo Yun-seo placed sixth in the solo free and Lee Ri-young placed ninth in the solo technical .Solo events are not part of the Olympic program. In their paired duet technical and free, they finished 13th, missing out on a spot in the final after finishing 12th.In the duet event at the Hangzhou Asian Games, where the technical and free scores are combined, they finished fourth and missed the podium. “After competing in the duet events at the Fukuoka World Championships and Hangzhou Asian Games, we got used to the different scoring system,” said Lee and Heo. Although we were disappointed with our duet results at both competitions, we used the disappointment as motivation,” said Lee.

“Recently, I’ve been strictly looking at technical accuracy. After the Hangzhou Asian Games, I trained to make my 180-degree spins bigger, to the point where I felt like I had gone around more than 180 degrees.” “At the Asian Games, I was penalized for my technique, but now I will be judged on how perfectly I performed my technique,” she said. Heo Yun-seo also practiced with ankle and waist belts. “Other countries are increasing the level of difficulty, so we modified our performances to increase the level of difficulty,” he said .After the World Championships in Fukuoka last July and the Asian Games in Hangzhou in October, there wasn’t much time to prepare for Doha, but Lee and Heo increased their training “like people who have more than 24 hours in a day,” Lee said. “Our performances will be much more precise and beautiful than last year,” they said, “and our scores are getting better and better. If you support us, we will gain more strength and repay you with good results. We want to qualify for the Paris Olympics.” “Following the recent trend, we paid attention to the technical details and tried not to miss the artistic part,” said Kim Hyo-mi, the national coach. “Both athletes worked hard, so please look forward to it.” Heo Yun-seo, who competed at 무료슬롯게임 the 2023 World Championships and Hangzhou Asian Games as a high school student, is now a ‘preliminary