Six British swimmers head to Paris for round two of the World Aquatics World Cup

Six artistic swimmers are traveling to Paris to represent Aquatics GB in the second leg of the Artistic Swimming World Cup this weekend.

The Olympic duet of Kate Shortman and Isabel Thorpe, the junior duet of Eve Young and Florence Blinkhorn, and the mixed duet of Ranjou Tomblin and Beatrice Klass will all compete in the three-day competition in the French capital.

The event will be held in the Olympic Pool of the brand new Aquatic Center in Saint-Denis and will feature athletes from 35 countries taking part from Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th May.

The competition will be held as one of the test events for the Olympic Games to be held in Paris later this year, and is the perfect preparation for Shortman and Thorp, who are expected to win Olympic medals.

The duo will return to competitive action after winning historic medals at the World Championships in Doha in February, and will compete in both the technical and free duet events in the north of the French capital. .

These events will be joined by England’s junior duet of Young and Blinkhorn, who made their senior debut in the opening round of the World Cup in China last month.

The new pair finished in the top 10 in both events and will now continue to develop as they compete against more advanced athletes.

As for Tomblin and Klass, they will face each other for the first time in 2024.

GB Mixed Duet, who made history by becoming the country’s first artistic swimming medal winner at last year’s European Games, missed out on the World Championships due to Tomblin’s injury, but has returned to training and is ready to continue her strong form from 2023. is made of.

They will compete in both the technical mixed duet and free mixed duet, and Tomblin will also compete in the men’s free solo competition.

“Important competitive experience”

Young, who spoke at last weekend’s Go Card Dress Swim England Artistic Swimming National Championships (where she won both solo titles), said the event in Paris was the more important competition for her and Blinkhorn. He said it would give him experience.

She said: It’s important for us to gain contest experience together as a duet, especially since we’re both complete beginners.

“So being able to participate in these competitions is very beneficial to see how far we can go.

“I think there will be close to 40 countries participating in Paris, so a lot of the Olympic duets are going to be in Paris, so it’s good for us to get closer to that standard and see what we want to aim for in the future. Dew.”

You can watch every match of the World Swimming Artistic Swimming World Cup for free on Eurovision Sport, and live results are available on the World Swimming website.