We are a swimming site, and will primarily focus on the swimming events, but in an effort to address the interests of the broader aquatics community, we will bring brief daily recaps across all 6 FINA disciplines
First, the overall, all-sports medals table from day 1:
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  China |
1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 2 |  Russia |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
 Tunisia |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
 United States |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 5 |  Brazil |
0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
 Canada |
0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| 7 |  Italy |
0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 8 |  Germany |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 Spain |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Total | 4 | 4 | 4 | 12 | |
Here’s what happened:
Open Water
American Haley Anderson struck first blood with a win in the women’s 5 kilometer race, just out-touching Brazil’s Poliana Okimoto by two-tenths of a second. The Brazilians had two on the podium, though, as Ana Marcela Cunha took 3rd. Read more here.
In the men’s race, Olympic 10km champion Ous Mellouli began his meet with an edge, winning the men’s 5km race. Canada’s Eric Hedlin and Germany’s Thomas Lurz went for silver and bronze, respectively. He and Anderson are training partners at the Trojan Swim Club in Los Angeles. Read more here.
Diving
Chinese diving legend Minxia Wu won paired with Tingmao Shi to win the women’s 3-meter springboard event. For Wu, that’s her 6th World Championship crown, which marks the most of all-time. Wu was the Olympic Champion on the individual 3-meter event and in the 3-meter synchro, though she changed partners after winning gold last year with He Zi. This was also China’s seventh-straight win in this particular event at the World Championships. They lost only the first edition of this event, at the 1998 World Championships, to the Russians, and have won every time since.
The Italian duo of Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape took silver, more than 30 points behind Shi and Wu, while Canada’s Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware took bronze, making Canada the first nation to score medals in two different disciplines at this year’s Championships.
The American duo of Sam Pickens and Amanda Burke finished 7th overall.
China’s victory
Italy 2nd
Canada 3rd
USA 7th
Synchronized Swimming
Russia’s Svetlana Romashina took the first gold in synchronized swimming when she won the solo technical routine, ahead of China’s Xuechen Huang and Spain’s Ona Carbonella.
The 23-year old Romashina had huge shoes to fill in this event; her fellow Russian Natalia Ishchenko had been the only champion in this event since its inclusion on the schedule in 2007, and Romashina did well to carry the torch.
Romashina is by no-means a novice in synchro (she has three gold medals and 11 World Championships to her credit), but has for the first time added these individual events to her repertoire. In Kazan at the World University Games, she became that event’s first ever solo synchro champ (they just added the sport this year), and followed it with the victory here.
This is a non-Olympic event where athletes must “perform six predetermined elements in a given sequence in a routine that last two minutes.”
What’s Next?
On Sunday, medals will be awarded in the duet technical routine final for synchro, the men’s 10 meter synchro platform in diving, and the women’s water polo tournament will begin with the first round of group play. That will include a juggernaut first-round match, where the defending Olympic Champions from the United States will square off against the defending World Champions from Greece at 1:30 PM local time at the Piscines Bernat Picornell
How wonderful to see the pool where Mark Lenzi won his gold meter on 3 meter. I wish I could have seen this competition live. How sad to not be able to watch the world championships for reasons no one understands. Where is FINA? Where is USA Swimming?