Townsend becomes double champion at National Age Group Championships

Magdelena Townsend became a double national champion after producing a stunning routine to score 66.4667 on day two of the 2023 Artistic Swimming National Age Group Championships.

Her routine showed good travel across the pool, excellent height and control, ending on a combined score of 133.4431, 0.6 ahead of the rest of the field.

“It feels unreal,” Magdelena said. “Finishing so close in figures yesterday and winning the duet really gave me that extra push to give it everything this morning”.

After a close figures competition yesterday, where the top five were separated by less than two points, the youth solo competition was all to play for.

Aqualina’s Kiarra Janikova climbed a place to take the silver medal, with her score of 66.2000 combining with her figures score of 66.6491 to finish on 132.8491.

2023 Youth figure champion Katherine Boitsidis swam to Rihanna’s ‘Stay’ to score 65.7000 and take the bronze medal, scoring 19.1000 for execution, 27.2000 for artistic impression and 19.4000 for difficulty.

Her total was 132.7036, missing out on the silver medal by just 0.1.

The highest routine score of the day went to Reading Royal’s Francesca Pringle, who showed great use of the pool space to achieve 66.9000.

It wasn’t quite enough to finish on the podium but saw her jump from seventh place to fourth place, finishing on a very respectable 130.0691.

Sharashkina steps onto the podium for the third time

London Regional Synchronised Swimming Club continued their fine form from yesterday as Victoria Sharashkina won her second title and third medal at this year’s Championships.

She won the 12 and under solo competition after a spectacular routine that scored 58.5667 from the judges, which when added to her figures score of yesterday gave her a total of 122.6297.

Sharashkina’s routine scored 18.0000 for execution, 23.4667 for artistic impression and 17.1000 for difficulty.

It was the club’s third gold of the Championships so far after they won two golds in the figure events yesterday, with one coming from Sharashkina in the 11-12 event.

And the London swimmer also won silver alongside duet partner Christina Kapiris as her impressive competition continues.

However, Rugby Artistic Swimming Club’s Lola Huett scored the highest for her solo routine with a total of 58.8000. It gave her a total of 119.0110 that wasn’t enough to catch Sharashkina in the overall table.

Huett’s display did see her move from third to second place in the standings following the figure events, finishing just 3.1616 behind Sharakshina overall.

Evelyn Fornasier of Aquaoaks Artistic Swimming Club scored 54.6333 for her solo routine as she secured the bronze medal with a total score of 115.5347.

Rugby and Aqualina secure back to back Mixed Duet titles

Both the Rugby 12 and under duet and the Aqualina youth duet retained their titles from 2022 with a set of controlled displays.

Each of the events had two entries with as Keva Ennis and Aaron Lee once again combined to win the 12 and under competition for Rugby, with a routine score of 52.8000.

They scored 16.0000 for execution, 20.8000 artistic impression and 16.0000 for difficulty.

The silver medallists were the City of Leeds team of Bella Tennant and Salvador Ingham, who scored 47.0000 points for their effort.

Aqualina’s Maxwell Sewell and Kiarra Janikova became the Mixed Duet champions after scoring a magnificent 65.4333 from the judges.

They were presented with their gold medals after scores of 19.4000 for execution, 25.7333 for artistic impression and 20.3000 for difficulty.

Their performance was almost eight points better off than their winning effort from last year as they continue to up their game in 2023.

Gemma Grobbelaar and Stanley Stiff won the silver medal for Aquaoaks Artistic Swimming Club after scoring 52.4667 for their routine.

Keep up with the live scores via the Swim England Artistic Swimming Live Scoreboard page.

Pictures: Will Johnston Photography.