China achieves artistic swimming double
For the third time on Saturday, China secured a clean sweep of gold medals in a sport after Wang Qianyi and Wang Liuyi clinched the duet in artistic swimming. The 27-year-old twin siblings from Shenzhen performed last out of 17 nations at the Aquatics Centre, after finishing first in the technical routine on Friday. They came back only fourth in the free routine, but the combined score of 566.4783 points was still enough to be crowned champions. Great Britain's Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe won silver at nearly eight points adrift, while the Dutch twins of Bregje and Noortje de Brouwer rounded up the podium. The result marked a perfect ending for China, who already struck gold in the team event on Wednesday.  The national artistic swimming team were runners-up in both events in the past two Games, losing to Russia on all four occasions. But the defending champions were banned from the Olympics over the country's conflict with Ukraine. Both the Wang sisters will return to school next month, having already been admitted to the Education University of Hong Kong's Doctor of Education (Chinese prospective) programme.