British team of Olympic medallists and future stars selected for World Champs

Aquatics GB have selected an 11-strong team, which includes a mixture of Olympic heroes and senior international debutants for the World Aquatics Short Course Championships next month.

The competition in Budapest will round out a memorable 2024 for the British swimming team when they take on the world’s best at the Duna Arena from Tuesday 10 to Sunday 15 December.

The event in Hungary will be a first world senior international for both Amelie Blocksidge and Joshua Gammon. The pair will be buoyed after strong showings across the year and will look to build their racing experience ahead of a big Olympic cycle for the duo.

Fifteen-year-old Blocksidge won three European Junior titles in 2024, whilst Gammon was part of Britain’s inaugural under-23s team at a European event last year.

Butterfly specialist Jacob Peters is also set for his first global short-course event, after featuring at the last two long-course World Championships, 12 months on from winning his first individual international medal at the European Short Course Championships.

They’ll be joined by three more of Team GB’s rising stars with Paris debutants Oliver Morgan, Eva Okaro and Angharad Evans all heading to Budapest relishing more competition exposure after impressive seasons.

Olympic 50m Freestyle silver medallist Ben Proud will be aiming for his third successive global short-course medal in the same event as he spearheads the GB cohort, having won the world short-course title back in 2021 and silver the following year in Melbourne.

Tokyo Olympic champion Freya Anderson and 2024 World Championship medal-winning duo Abbie Wood and Max Litchfield will also look to start their season on a high as they push for more medals on the international stage.

‘Valuable early-season racing’

Rounding out the British team is University of Edinburgh’s Archie Goodburn, who earns his first senior World Short Course Championships. Goodburn, Peters and Morgan all came together as part of Britain’s European silver medal winning 4x50m Medley Relay nearly 12 months ago and will look to impress once again in Hungary.

Speaking ahead of his first event as the new Aquatics GB swimming head coach, Steven Tigg said: “We are really looking forward to bringing this team together and getting some valuable early-season racing under the belt as we begin a fresh Olympic cycle towards LA – with the first major focus being about building towards next summer’s World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.

“The World Short Course Championships are always an enjoyable and insightful competition opportunity, which provide a chance to fine-tune technical skills and routines in the high-performance arena.

“To be able to bring experienced Olympic and world performers like Ben and Freya together with some younger athletes who are starting out on exciting journeys in the sport is fantastic, and every single member of the team will undoubtedly get a lot out of the trip.

“We must also add how great it is that Archie will be part of the team in Budapest. He has shown remarkable resilience over the past six months, and seeing him on the blocks in a few weeks’ time will be true testament to that.”