ARTISTIC SWIMMING AT THE PAN AM GAMES#

The senior national team is seeking team qualification for the Olympic Games Paris 2024, which would be the first appearance since 2007. While Team USA has been represented by a duet at every Olympic Games since 2008, Team USA has lost team continental qualification to Canada at each Pan American Games dating back to Bejing 2008. Since the 2019 hiring of prestigious international coach Andrea Fuentes, the team has been rebuilding and climbing the international rankings.

This competition year was the first year with a brand-new scoring system aimed at reducing subjectivity in the sport by utilizing predetermined difficulty scores and factorization. Team USA has navigated the new system brilliantly, capitalizing on the opportunity to be rewarded for difficult routines. Additionally, the average age of the squad has increased, adding maturity and experience to the roster with athletes returning to the national talent program after college or coming out of retirement to be a part of the rebuild.

Overall, the stars aligned for a breakout artistic swimming year for the United States. The competition season has been monumental for the Americans, with the squad bringing home the first world championship team medal in 16 years in addition to an excellent collection of medals from the world cup circuit.  

With the new scoring system came other new rules. Of the eight athletes in a team routine at the Olympic Games, two are permitted to be male. This inspired artistic swimming sensation, 44-year-old and world champion Bill May, to come out of retirement to pursue his once unachievable Olympic dream. Other athletes to watch for include two-time Olympian Anita Alvarez, who will look to punch her third Olympic Games ticket and become the most seasoned Olympian ever, and young superstar Megumi Field who burst onto the senior artistic swimming scene as a talented teenager. 
 
Finally, rule changes also included the addition of a third team routine at the Olympic Games: the acrobatic category. This made-for-viewers program features high-flying lifts and stunning displays of athleticism.

Team USA will also be represented by a duet in Santiago. The final roster for the duet will be selected in the coming weeks and will feature two standout athletes from the Pan American Games team roster. If the team qualifies for the Olympic Games, the duet will automatically qualify as well. If the team misses qualification, the duet has its own pathway to Paris.

Team: The continental qualification will be decided by the country which secures gold after aggregating the free team, technical team and acrobatic team scores at the Pan American Games Santiago 2023. If the team fails to qualify for the Olympic Games in Santiago, the team can still earn an Olympic spot by finishing in the top five teams at the 2024 World Championships in Doha. Ten total teams and 18 total duets compete next year in Paris. 
 
Duet: The continental qualification for duet will be decided by the country which secures gold after aggregating the free duet and technical duet scores at the 2023 Pan American Games. If the team secures continental qualification at the 2023 Pan American Games or 2024 World Championships, the duet automatically qualifies as well. The highest-ranking nation in each of the five continental tournaments will obtain a quota place. In the case a duet has already qualified through the team process, eligibility passes to the next highest placed duet. The rest of the Olympic duet slots are filled via the duet competition at 2024 World Championships. Ten total teams and 18 total duets compete in Paris next year.

The senior national team athletes eligible to swim Santiago 2023 and Paris 2024 were selected during a multi-stage trials process in May 2023. From the trials, 12 athletes were named to the senior squad and every athlete competed in at least one event at the Fukoaka 2023 World Championships as a test of their real-time competition abilities. Because only nine athletes can be utilized across three, eight-member team rosters for the Pan American Games, final athletes were selected to the roster in September. The nine athletes that will swim in Santiago include Anita Alvarez, Ruby Remati, Megumi Field, Dani Ramirez, Calista Liu, Audrey Kwon, Jaime Czarkowski, Jacklyn Luu and Bill May.