Israel's mixed duet pairing of Lior Makmel and Yogev Dagan finished fifth in the technical routine final at the European Aquatics Championships in Paris, Sport5 reported, closing out their round with a score of 193.8017 points.
The placing, corroborated by the official results, put the Israeli pair clear of the bottom half of an eight-country final staged at the Centre Aquatique Olympique in Saint-Denis, the venue built for artistic swimming and diving at the 2024 Paris Olympics and now hosting this summer's European Championships.
Great Britain's Isabelle Thorpe and Ranjuo Tomblin took the title on 229.6783, narrowly ahead of Italy's Lucrezia Ruggiero and Filippo Pelati on 229.0092. A pairing of neutral athletes, Alina Rumiantseva and Zakhar Trofimov, took bronze with 215.9201, with Spain's Carla Lorenzo and Jordi Cáceres fourth on 210.8584 — all four clear of Makmel and Dagan. Portugal, Germany and Bulgaria filled the places below Israel.
For Dagan, the result is another step in an unusual and closely watched career. Born in August 2007, he switched from competitive pool swimming as a young teenager after his coach, Svetlana Belcher, suggested he try artistic swimming — a discipline where mixed pairs, as in ice dance, have only recently become part of the international programme. He went on to become the first Israeli boy to compete in the team event at a European Championships, at 14, and was part of the group that won bronze in the team routine at last year's Europeans.
Makmel, born in January 2009, trains with A.L.E Mazkeret Batya, the club that has become the production line for much of Israel's current artistic-swimming generation, regularly supplying the national team's duet and group lineups.
The Paris Championships run from 31 July to 16 August, with the artistic swimming programme concentrated in the opening week; the mixed duet technical routine was decided on 2 August. Israel's artistic swimmers have become a fixture in European finals in recent years, a marked shift for a programme that was a marginal presence on the continental circuit barely a decade ago.
