Promising performances as personal bests broken at European Junior Championships

Great Britain’s young artistic swimmers set a number of personal bests as they put on promising performances against tough competition at the LEN European Junior Championships.

The mixed duet of Rosie Rallings and Ranjuo Tomblin impressed on their international debuts as they claimed fifth place in an experienced field in Malta.

They scored 72.7499 and were only 6.3709 behind the third-placed French duet.

Rallings was also part of the team – alongside Isobel Blinkhorn, Millicent Costello, Daisy Gunn, Cerys Larsen, Aimee Lawrence, Robyn Swatman and Evie Walker – which took ninth spot in the technical final with a score of 76.1173.

Eleanor Blinkhorn and Laura Turberville replaced Rallings and Walker in the team free final with Britain finishing on 78.0667 to take 11th spot.

Costello and Larsen bettered their duet free preliminary score in the final as they finished 11th.

A total of 76.6333 earned the duo a spot in the final and they finished with a score of 77.2000.

In the duet technical final, Gunn and Turberville were ranked 15th out of the 23 entrants after scoring 74.8721.

And in the solo free competition, Swatman scored 78.2333 to finish 13th in the preliminary round and just miss out on a final place.

Competed well

Karen Thorpe, Swim England artistic swimming manager, said the level of competition was so high as the age group for this year’s championships had been increased by a year.

This meant a number of athletes who had taken part in the Artistic Swimming European Championships in Budapest were also in action in Malta – but the British youngsters were by no means overawed by their opponents.

Karen added: “The juniors competed well and we were pleased with how they performed after so long away from face-to-face competition.

“They will now have a break before they start training in September for the new season, where they will be building back up for the Junior Europeans in 2022.

“We will be working hard to achieve a score of 80 in all the events that we enter.

“I was really thrilled with how the mixed duet got on in what was a debut at international level for both Rosie and Ranjuo.

“They only started working on this routine in May and were only just behind the established Slovakian mixed duet in fifth place.

“If they continue to work hard, there is no reason why they can’t push for a mixed duet medal at next year’s championships.”

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