The Russian synchronized swimming team has qualified for London 2012, where it will try to maintain a record of winning every Olympic gold medal since 2000.
The Russian team, with two of the nine members retained from the winning team in Beijing in 2008, won the qualifying event in London with a score of 195.910 on Saturday.
The Spanish team was 2.69 points further back in second place, followed by Japan, 9.03 points off Russia’s score. Spain and Japan took the last two Olympic spots.
While Britain received an automatic berth as host, all other European teams were required to take part in the qualification event, which doubled as a test event for the London Aquatics Center.
The other three teams with a place in London are Egypt, China and Canada, which qualified through their continental tournaments.
A day earlier, the Russian duo of Natalya Ischenko and Svetlana Romashina booked their place at the Games with a score of 195.950, beating the Spanish and Ukrainian pairs into second and third.
Thirteen other teams qualified for the Olympic duet competition at the test event, including North Korea, taking the total number of Olympic pairs to 24.
Russia has won the duet and team gold medals at each of the last three Olympic Games, and swept the board at last year's world aquatics championships in Shanghai, winning gold in all seven events.
Longtime rival China took six silver medals.
