EA Artistic Swimming Support Program launched to boost team entries on road to Paris 2026

European Aquatics has launched an initiative to encourage wider participation in artistic swimming team competition, with three national federations receiving financial support to compete in this summer’s EA Championships in Paris.

The EA’s AS Support Program 2026 is providing Portugal, Turkiye and Bulgaria with 10,000 euros each to prepare teams who will be in action at the Olympic Aquatic Centre Greater Paris Metropolisthis summer.

All three countries have already held their initial team training camps and EA will be marking their progress towards the artistic swimming competition which runs in the French capital from July 31 to August 5.

This initiative was prompted by the fact that, while many federations had athletes involved in solo or duet competition, the number of countries taking part in the team free, team technical and team acrobatic events was relatively limited.

The intention is to encourage the establishment of teams involving athletes who will be able to maintain their involvement, thus creating a new competitive legacy and encouraging new generations of talent to follow them.

A spokesperson for EA emphasises the long-term vision involved in this innovation:“ The idea is to create teams that will be almost like families who will be able to teach younger swimmers about the sport.”

Following an initial assessment, a number of National Federations were identified as potential candidates for inclusion in the project.

The selection process aimed to ensure that the chosen federations demonstrated both engagement and competitive potential within the sport.

Criteria for selection included completion of an Artistic Swimming questionnaire, participation with a team at the European Athletics Junior Championships in Athens 2025, and/or the overall number of junior and elite athletes within each federation.

Together, these factors were intended to provide a balanced measure of organisational commitment, international involvement and athlete development capacity.

Meanwhile European Aquatics is preparing to offer technical support in AS development to a number of other countries.

Look out for regular updates on the progress of the Portugal, Turkiye and Bulgaria teams as they head towards Paris…

Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics

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