For Maria Ramos, Vice Chair of the EA Artistic Swimming Committee, the post-Olympic season is uniquely exciting – and she expects that pattern to continue in 2025.

“The year after the Olympics is really exciting year because it is always a great transition year,” she told European Aquatics.

“Because we’ve got a European Aquatics Junior Championships coming up in June – after the senior European Artistic Swimming Championships in Funchal- there will be a lot of juniors who might be breaking into the senior ranks.

“It will be really interesting  to see to see if some of the older athletes might retire or take time off or dial back, which gives other athletes a chance to showcase themselves.

“You can get other surprises in a transition year because you will have different nations with different priorities. Some of the nations re-set or re-calibrate, they look at their talent to see what’s coming through and test different things out. They will start testing new routines, new skills.

“So this is always quite a magical year for me, because although we’ve had the previous year building up for the Olympics it’s the year after when you think ‘Who’s coming through? Who are the new superstars we could be identifying?’

“Coaches tend to move around a bit. And because we’ve got senior and junior championships this year it gives us a really great chance to look at who’s around.”

Following last year’s decision by Italy’s 28-year-old Giorgio Minisini to end his 15-year career – after winning his first world solo title and being voted best male artistic swimmer in the European Aquatics Awards – Ramos feels that there will be significant changes in the men’s sport.

“There definitely will be a shift,” she said. “The men’s space is really starting to evolve. 

“A lot of men and boys doing artistic swimming might be one a very few in their countries.

“But all the feedback that came back out of that men’s training camp organised in Barcelona in December indicates that they are now a community in their own right. So all those athletes will now travel on the circuit and forge that bond of community.

“They will still be highly competitive. But you can see that they have got a sense of togetherness and I think they will push each other on. I think we will see the standards improve very rapidly.

“Because when you are in your own country and you are the only male, who are you trying to beat? You can only beat yourself. Now they will be looking around far more widely – and maybe thinking, ‘I want to beat my friend.’

“I think there’s going to be a lot of rivalries appearing and it’s going to be really close. Because you’ve got Dennis Gonzalez, you’ve got Ranjuo Tomblin from Great Britain, you’ve got Filippo Pelati from Italy.

“I think those three are going to be rivals for a number of years.”

Looking at the wider perspective, Ramos accepted that one of the sport’s targets was to change perceptions ahead of LA 2028 Games with aim of getting male athletes into the mixed team events – something for which they were eligible at the Paris 2024 Games, albeit that none were selected.

“That has absolutely got to be the intention,” she said. “I think there is a much stronger possibility of that happening.

“Giorgio was an amazing trailblazer for men’s artistic swimming. But during his time you have had all these youngsters coming through who have been in the sport from a young age, and they are constantly developing new skills.

“So this group will be reaching their maturity in 2028 so I would absolutely see them being able to compete for places in the Olympic team event.”

Turning her gaze to women’s competition, Ramos believes the European rivalry at the Paris Olympics – where Britain’s Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe took duet silver and Dutch twins Bregje and Noortje de Brouwer earned bronze – will be an enduring feature in the sport.

At the World Aquatics Championships earlier in 2024 the de Brouwers had taken gold to the British pair’s silver.

“The rivalry will continue between Great Britain and The Netherlands,” she said. “And they are obviously the ones to beat, which is unusual. They’ve got targets on their backs now.

”It’s also going to be interesting to see the impact made by the Alexandri sisters (Anna-Maria and Eirini-Marina) who finished fourth in Paris.

“I think the Austrian duo had quite a tough 2024. They had quite a lot of injury and I think they were really, really disappointed to have missed out on an Olympic medal.

Everything that they had been working towards was a medal at Paris 2024, and it didn’t come off.

“There were some injuries, but they weren’t on the circuit very much last year. They have just changed their coach, and I am expecting them to be really pushing hard for podium places this year.

“So there’s a lot of rivalry between those countries. Meanwhile the traditional artistic swimming nations such as Italy, Ukraine and Spain will be going ‘well hang on, what do we need to do now? We need to step up and get back on the podium.’

“So I think it’s all really hotting up.

“Spain topped the European Aquatics Championships medals table in Belgrade with four golds and they are clearly on the up. They’ve obviously got a good pathway – there is talent coming through.

And they’ve got Andrea Fuentes back coaching in Spain after working in the United States and making really significant strides over there.

So Spain are set to become more and more dominant.”

Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics