After the Spanish synchronized swimming team's relegation to fifth place in the world championships, pending the free team and combo finals in which they also participate in that position, coach Esther Jaumà responded to comparisons with the past era, when Spain was one of the two or three best teams in the world. "Everything has changed. You can't compare this moment with the past because it would be absurd, but our challenge is to create a new team, and we are working on it, and continue fighting for the medals."

The arrival of the new coach coincided with a change in the cycle that had to be accelerated due to the resignation of some swimmers, such as Andrea Fuentes in the first year or Marga Crespí last year. Despite the good results obtained in Barcelona in 2013, where they won all the medals, the gradual incorporation of young swimmers has coincided with a profound change in synchronized swimming, which has also disoriented the coaching staff. "We are at a point where swimmers are testing themselves and we are seeing who are the best swimmers to get the most out of them. It happened in the technical duo. But we are creating a new team," commented for AS and El Larguero.

Although fifth place was the most pessimistic position that could be expected in this World Championships, it was one of the options, considering that Ukraine had already surpassed the Spanish team in the Europeans and Japan was expected to be the revelation of the championships. "We are not that far away. In the technical team preliminary, we were only eight tenths away from silver, although later in the final the judges decided to make the differences clear. We knew we would be between third and fifth position and in the end we ended up in the most negative position."

Aside from the youth of the group and the changes in the scoring criteria, public relations are important in a world where judges decide who the winners are, circumstances that make this sport "subjective". Japan is working on this because they will host the Olympic Games in 2020 and they are pushing hard from below to achieve a change in status in synchronized swimming worldwide as soon as possible. "Results come in the medium or long term. That's how it is, although we would like it to be faster. We haven't managed to create a mature team. But we are improving compared to last year and we hope it comes soon."

After this World Championships, the Spanish challenge will be to qualify for the Pre-Olympic in Rio de Janeiro, where Canada seems to be the biggest obstacle although Spain has always been ahead.