DELHI – Marie-Pier Boudreau-Gagnon of Rivière-du-Loup, Que., built a big lead in solo and in duet with partner Chloe Isaac of Brossard, Que., after Wednesday’s technical routines in synchronized swimming at the Commonwealth Games.

In solo, Boudreau-Gagnon totalled 95.334 points with Jenna Randall of England second at 89.166 and Lauren Smith of Scotland third at 79.834.

"I felt it was a near perfect performance," said Boudreau-Gagnon, third in the event last month at the FINA World Cup.  "It’s nice to have the lead but the goal is more the overall performance."

In duet, Boudreau-Gagnon and Isaac totalled 95.000 points with Randall and Olivia Allison of England second at 88.500 and Sarah Bombell and Eloise Amberger of Australia third at 78.500.  The Canadians performed to the soundtrack from Slumdog Millionaire, the Academy Award winning movie based in India.

"Our goal here is to swim better than at the World Cup and we are pretty satisfied with today’s performance," said Boudreau-Gagnon.  "We made a lot less errors and improved in the areas we had been working on over the last couple of weeks.  We wanted to show the judges we could bring the performance to another level."

Boudreau-Gagnon and Isaac, second at the World Cup, were also pleased with the crowd reaction.

"We are very happy to get the marks and it was pleasing to hear the crowd after some of our moves," Isaac said. "It’s important for us to entertain as well."

Canada’s coach Julie Sauvé said both programs went as expected.

"Our scores indicate we had very strong technical programs," said Sauvé.  "I was hoping we build an important gap between first and second and I think those scores show how well we did at the World Cup."

In Thursday’s final, the Canadian pair will perform its routine to the music of Metallica.

The finals for both events are on Thursday.