On Sunday, U.S. artistic swimmers Lindi Schroeder and Anita Alvarez earned their tickets to Tokyo by placing fifth at the FINA Olympic Games Artistic Swimming Qualification Tournament in Barcelona. The top-eight of 34 participating nations earned Olympic berths

Prior to the qualification tournament, American duo won the technical duet and free duet competitions at the virtual FINA Artistic Swimming World Series competition in May. Their win in these categories made it the second time they’ve been able secure first place finishes in virtual competition this year. It reassured the two that they had the potential to qualify for the Olympics and represent the U.S. in Tokyo.

Alvarez, who competed in the duet at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, swam with Schroeder in both the preliminary technical and free routines on Saturday. But in the course of the mentally and physically draining week, Alvares briefly passed out after the preliminary free performance. Although Alvarez was able to recover, she did not swim in the final on Sunday and Ruby Remati substituted for her in the clinching session.

The final score from the technical routine was 87.2417 and the final score from the final free routine was 87.3668, earning the trio a total score of 174.6085 points.

The eight-woman U.S. team fell short of qualification for the Tokyo team event, finishing in fourth just .211 points behind Greece for the final Olympic spot. To qualify, teams needed to place in the top three.

Back in 2019, Schroeder and Alvarez were named the U.S. duet team for Tokyo, contingent on earning qualification. Having done so, the U.S. will extend its streak of competing in every women’s duet since the event debuted at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. 

The last time a U.S. duet team stood on an Olympic podium was in the 2004 Athens Games, when Alison Bartosik and Anna Kozlova won bronze.