SINGAPORE — Wearing golden headbands reminiscent of the legendary Monkey King, China's artistic swimmers brought the myth to life in a powerful Wukong-inspired routine to win gold in the team technical event at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships on Tuesday.

Their performance, based on the popular Chinese video game Black Myth: Wukong, earned China 307.8001 points — edging out longtime rival Russia, competing under the name Neutral Athletes B (NAB), which finished second with 300.6183 points. Spain was third with 294.8575.

"This is a very special day," said head coach Zhang Xiaohuan. "It's the first time the Chinese artistic swimming team has been able to directly compete against our biggest rivals on a stage like this. It's a moment we've waited a long time for."

"This gold medal doesn't feel any less important than the one we won at the Olympic Games in Paris," she added. "Our swimmers performed very well today. They improved in the areas that needed work after the preliminary round, and with that, they earned this title."

China won both the duet and team titles at the 2024 Paris Games, where Russian athletes did not participate.

"I think they are still very admirable opponents," Zhang said. "They give us strong motivation to keep improving. We only narrowly won this time. We still have a long way to go."

Defeating NAB also gave the Chinese team a significant confidence boost.

"We've waited a long time to compete against a team we've always wanted to measure ourselves against," said team captain Feng Yu. "That makes this result even more special. It's only when you face tough competition that you learn and improve."

The Wukong routine has been successful since its debut at the Artistic Swimming World Cup Super Final in Xi'an this June, where China also delivered a dominant performance. The coaching staff increased the difficulty level for the world championships.

"We raised the difficulty by almost two points," Zhang said. "Most of that came from the leg movements. However, we didn't extend the athletes' breath-holding time. Instead, we incorporated more challenging movements at a faster tempo."

The runner-up was pleased with its silver medal.

"We are very happy to be here at such a high-level competition," said Anastasiia Bakhtureva of NAB. "This is our first time competing at this level, and we feel a tremendous amount of emotion. We are very excited."

Earlier in the day, China's Xu Huiyan won silver in the women's solo free event, finishing behind Spain's Iris Tio Casas. Just hours later, she returned to the pool for the team technical final.

Xu made history in Singapore on Saturday by winning China's first-ever women's solo technical gold medal at the world championships. The 19-year-old now holds 19 gold medals across the World Cup, world championships and world junior championships.

"As a young athlete, Huiyan has progressed remarkably in just one year — from winning bronze in Doha to achieving what she has here in Singapore," said Zhang. "Our rival in the solo free delivered an outstanding routine today."

The team technical gold marks China's third gold in artistic swimming at the world championships.

Xinhua