Brilliant bronze at European Games provides Olympic artistic swimming medal motivation for scholar Kate Shortman
University of Bath sporting scholar Kate Shortman says she and artistic swimming partner Izzy Thorpe are targeting an Olympic podium place after winning Women’s Duet bronze at the Kraków-Małopolska 2023 European Games in Poland.
It is a first continental medal for 30 years by a British pairing in the Duet and the first major international medal of their careers to date for the duo, who improved on their preliminaries score by more than 15 points in Saturday’s final after receiving no base marks on their degree of difficulty of 34.500.
Shortman, who is supported by a Bill Whiteley Scholarship as she combines her sporting career with studying International Management and Modern Languages (French), said: “We have a new coach, we have the new rule changes and they suit us perfectly so we’re really excited for the future.
“We’ve started here, next we want that Olympic medal and we’re going to fight for it and absolutely train our socks off to try and get there. We’ve got a taste of it today and I can tell that we’re both so motivated.”
“WE WANT AN OLYMPIC MEDAL!” new European Games 🥉medallists Izzy Thorpe & Kate Shortman tell me.
🇬🇧 artistic swimmers have endured a lot – including many funding cuts since their last Euro medal – 30 YEARS AGO!
They’ve never been seen as major 🏅 contenders. TODAY THAT CHANGED! pic.twitter.com/QJUyHj8X12
— Nick Hope – the athlete’s journalist (@NickHopeTV) June 24, 2023
A new mathematically-based scoring system has been introduced for the 2023 international season based on routine elements and degree of difficulty, designed to make results less subjective.
Shortman and Thorpe, who competed at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, also finished fifth in the Duet Technical with a score of 242.9967.
Daniella Lloyd – supported by a Goldsmith Scholarship – and Robyn Swatman, both of whom study Sports Performance at the University of Bath, represented Team GB in the Team events, placing fifth in both the Acrobatic Routine and Free Final as well as eighth in the Technical.
Twelve University of Bath-based athletes are representing Team GB at the European Games, which run until Sunday 2nd July. Click here for more details.
Picture credit: LEN / @LENAquatics
