Six Brits head to Paris for second leg of World Aquatics World Cup

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

The Olympic duet of Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe, Junior Duet of Eve Young and Florence Blinkhorn and the Mixed Duet of Ranjuo Tomblin and Beatrice Crass are all in the French capital for the three day competition.

The event is being held in the Olympic pool at the brand new Aquatic Centre in Saint-Denis, with athletes from 35 countries in action from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 May.

It will run as one of the test events for the Games in Paris later this year which will provide perfect preparation for Olympic medal hopefuls Shortman and Thorpe.

The duo return to competitive action after their historic medals at February’s World Championships in Doha as they compete in both the Technical and Free Duet events in the north of the French capital.

They’ll be joined in those events by the British junior duet of Young and Blinkhorn who made their senior debuts at the opening leg of the World Cup in China last month.

The new pairing finished in the top 10 in both competitions and will now take on more senior level athletes as they continue their development.

As for Tomblin and Crass, they will compete for the first time in 2024.

The GB Mixed Duet – who made history with the nation’s first ever artistic swimming medals at a European Games last year – missed the world championships due to Tomblin’s injury but are back in training and ready to continue their strong form from 2023.

They’ll compete in both the Technical Mixed Duet and the Free Mixed Duet whilst Tomblin will also take to the pool in the Male Free Solo competition.

‘Important competition experience’

Speaking at last weekend’s GoCardless Swim England Artistic Swimming National Championships – where she claimed both solo titles – Young said the event in Paris will give her and Blinkhorn more vital competition experience.

She said: “I’m very excited. It’s important for us to get competition experience together as a duet, particularly since we’re quite new to each other.

“So being able to go to these competitions will be really beneficial for us to see where we can take it.

“There’s going to be almost 40 countries in Paris I think so they’ll be a lot of the Olympic duets there so it will be good for us to be around that standard and see what we’re wanting to aim for in the future.”

You can watch all the action from the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup for free on Eurovision Sport whilst you can find live results on the World Aquatics website.