Great Britain's young synchronised swimmers gain valuable experience

Great Britain finished eighth in a challenging technical team final at the European Junior Artistic (Synchronised) Swimming Championships in Prague.

The team of Isobel Blinkhorn, Millicent Costello, Isobel Davies, Daisy Gunn, Cerys Hughes, Cerys Larsen, Daniella Lloyd and Laura Turberville claimed 76.6894 points as they gained valuable experience against some of the continent’s and the world’s best teams, with Russia picking up almost 90 points to win gold.

The result is an improvement on their performance at last year’s European Juniors, when they finished ninth with 76.5742 points and the team will be encouraged by the fact that five of the swimmers were competing at this level for the first time.

But it is still a couple of marks short of their personal best score and they will be looking to make an impact in the free team and free combination finals, which take place over the weekend.

Shortman surges into final

Meanwhile, Kate Shortman qualified for Saturday’s solo free final after finishing fifth in the preliminary round.

Her total of 85.3000 was just outside her personal best score of 85.6000.

Only 4.1000 points separated the top five and Swim England National Synchro Manager, Karen Thorpe, said: “Kate swam well and has everything to fight for in the final.”

Shortman will be in action in the solo technical final on Friday.

The duet free preliminary round will also take place, where Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe will be looking to build on their excellent fourth place in the duet technical competition.