Russian synchronized swimming pair continued their lead in the preliminary of the duet free routine on Tuesday and were ready to keep their Olympic title in Wednesday's final.

Anastasia Davydova and Anastasia Ermakova, the Athens champion, carried their lead from Monday to score 49.50 points, only 0.5 points to the full score. The two 25-year-olds performed flawlessly to a Norwegian play music piece, scoring nine 9.9s and one full 10 mark.

Spanish veteran swimmer Gemma Mengual and Andrea Fuentes placed second with 49.084 points. Chinese twins Jiang Tingting and Jiang Wenwen share the third place with Japanese duo Saho Harad and Emiko Suzuki, at 48.50 points.

Davydova said the rivalry for gold mainly comes from the Spanish pair, but they are ready to hold them off with more difficult moves.

"Both of our routines require a lot of breath control under water, but our time of holding the breath is 10 to 15 seconds longer than the Spanish duets," she said.

China's Jiang twins, yet to turn 22, performed a distinctive peacock-themed free routine to the roaring cheers of the home crowd which nearly drowned the music. Their routine climaxed with forming a square with their legs.

The twins, relatively lean for the sport, have been feeding on a lot of meat, cheese and chocolates to increase strength.

"The other teams, like the Japanese, are better than we are at control and strength. But we can make up with better stretch and synchronization," the older sister Wenwen said.

The Chinese girls, mentored by Japanese legend synchro swimming coach Masayo Imura, are likely to make the podium, but also face strong contesters like the Japan, Spain and the United States.

Japan has medaled in the sport in every Olympics since it was introduced at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. The American swimmers were also podium finishers in all the Games except in Sydney.

"I want the Chinese swimmers to achieve a good result as the host country," Imura said, "I think they made a big decision to invite a coach from Japan. I would like to live up to their expectations."

A total of 24 duets treated the spectators with performances to various music like Requiem, Ninjia and rhythmic jazz. Half of the duos will enter Wednesday's final, with results determined by combining half of the technical routine score and half of the free routine score.

(Xinhua News Agency August 20, 2008)