GB Juniors gain 'great experience' in Peru to round out historic season

Great Britain’s artistic swimmers rounded out their season with some fine performances at the World Junior Championships in Lima, Peru.

More than 250 of the world’s top artistic swimmers aged 15 to 19 for females and 15 to 20 for males took part and there were 12 sets of medals up for grabs in the Peruvian capital.

The 11-strong British squad travelled to South America on the back of their impressive European Junior Championships in July to round out their competitive year with a ‘significant improvement’.

Speaking on the groups performances, Swim England Artistic Swimming manager, Karen Thorpe, said: “Junior worlds was a fantastic event for us, obviously it was a long way to go but I think we were riding off the success of the Olympic Games.

“We knew that it was going to be a very challenging event, there was a huge number of teams that had entered and were taking part.

“And the standard of the Juniors is really high – almost as high as the seniors – we knew that after competing at the European Championships.

“The difficulty being submitted is nearly parallel compared to the seniors so we wanted to strategise in a different way rather than just applying our routines with more difficulty, which might have increased our positioning.

“As their juniors, we wanted to make sure that they were understanding and learning about how to perform with really good execution. And there was a significant improvement in our performances from Europeans to worlds.”

“We have quite an inexperienced junior team, this is the first season that a lot of these athletes have been competing and it’s the first world championships the team have been to other than Ranjuo.

“I think it’s been a great experience, it was great for them to travel so far, cope with the jet lag, so the learning experience to go with it was the priority for us.”

Continue that upwards trajectory

Amongst the group was Male Free Solo European champion, Ranjuo Tomblin, who continued his memorable 2024 with four top ten finishes across the five-day event.

His best placing came in the Male Technical Solo where he finished fifth with a controlled swim. He recorded a strong total of 245.6466 which was less than 13 points off the winning mark.

He backed that up with eighth in the Male Free Solo whilst he also teamed with Holly Hughes and Lola Cencki in the mixed duet events.

Just like they did in Malta, the mixed duets put in strong performances with Tomblin and Hughes taking eighth in the free event whilst Cencki and Tomblin were sixth in the technical competition.

The junior duet of Eve Young and Florence Blinkhorn also completed their busy season, which included senior World Cup and European Championship outings, in Peru.

They finished 13^th in the Duet Technical with a score of 242.2733 whilst they just missed out on the final in the free after placing 17^th.

Great Britain’s teams completed the nations showing with both the free and technical teams scoring more than 250 points in each competition. They were 11^th in the technical final and 12^th in the free.

Each of the athletes are now taking a well-earned break and looking ahead to the new campaign as Thorpe hopes to continue the sports upwards trend.

“The athletes are now having a short break and then they’ll be training back up with their clubs and getting ready to come back for trials at the end of the month and start of next month.

“In the new season, we’re looking to compete at the Europeans and the World Cups. We’re also hoping to enter the World Championships with the team as well and continue that upwards trajectory.”

You can catch up on all the results from the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming Junior Championships 2024 here and all the routines are available to watch back on the World Aquatics YouTube channel.

Images: Artistic Swimming Lima and World Aquatics.