Courtesy: British Swimming
With Olympic year on the horizon, 35 swimmers have been named to round off 2023 at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in Bucharest, Romania next month – including every medallist from this year’s World Aquatics Championships.
The majority of the team for the Bucharest event – which will take place from 5th-10th December – were part of the group that took eight medals at the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka back in July, with almost all of the remainder having competed at August’s European Under-23 Championships in Dublin.
The last major international short course outing for Great Britain’s athletes came at the 2022 World Short Course Championships, with the athletes there securing four medals out in Melbourne – while the most recent European Short Course Championships to have British involvement was on home soil in 2019 in Glasgow.
Tom Dean is the only athlete to have taken medals across all three of those competitions in Fukuoka, Melbourne and Glasgow, and the 23-year-old is once again set to feature this time around, alongside all three of his Olympic and Worlds Men’s 4x200m Freestyle final-winning teammates James Guy, Duncan Scott and Matt Richards.
Richards will be looking to add to the maiden world title he secured over the summer in what will be his first appearance at a European Short Course Championships, while all other medallists from Fukuoka – Anna Hopkin, Freya Anderson, Lucy Hope, Lauren Cox, Joe Litchfield, Ben Proud and Jacob Whittle – are also set to feature.
Athletes were selected based on their performances at international swim meets between 1st May 2023 and 30th August 2023, with a number of those competing eyeing valuable competition time as they build towards the push for Paris in 2024.
Giving his thoughts on the competition, British Swimming’s Head Coach Bill Furniss spoke of the value the experience will bring to the athletes involved once the action in the Romanian capital kicks off.
“The European Short Course Championships are a great opportunity for us to assess where the athletes are at come the end of the first training block of Olympic year”, said Furniss.
“The short-course aspect of the competition will allow us to collect valuable insight into our athletes’ performances and help them focus on developing their starts, turns, and finishing skills. The unique relay opportunities presented to us will also be crucial as we look to build on our ability in this area.
“It will also be a great opportunity to continue building team morale as we build towards the Olympic Games, with the team list combining our more experienced swimmers with some new faces to the senior team.”
The British Swimming team for the 2023 European Short Course Championships in Bucharest, Romania (5th-10th December):
- Jonathon Adam, Bath Performance Centre
- Freya Anderson, Bath Performance Centre
- Cameron Brooker, Bath Performance Centre
- Lewis Burras, Loughborough University
- Gregory Butler, Loughborough Performance Centre
- Imogen Clark, Derby Excel
- Alexander Cohoon, Loughborough University
- Freya Colbert, Loughborough Performance Centre
- Lauren Cox, Loughborough University
- Kathleen Dawson, University of Stirling
- Tom Dean, Bath Performance Centre
- Archie Goodburn, Edinburgh University
- Luke Greenbank, Loughborough Performance Centre
- James Guy, Millfield
- Kara Hanlon, Edinburgh University
- Medi Harris, Loughborough Performance Centre
- Lucy Hope, University of Stirling
- Anna Hopkin, Loughborough Performance Centre
- Evan Jones, University of Stirling
- Emily Large, Millfield
- Joe Litchfield, Loughborough Performance Centre
- Keanna MacInnes, University of Stirling
- Jack McMillan, University of Stirling
- Edward Mildred, Bath Performance Centre
- Oliver Morgan, University of Birmingham
- Jacob Peters, Bath Performance Centre
- Ben Proud, University of Bath
- Matthew Richards, Millfield
- Leah Schlosshan, City of Leeds
- Duncan Scott, University of Stirling
- Katie Shanahan, University of Stirling
- Laura Stephens, Loughborough Performance Centre
- Jacob Whittle, Bath Performance Centre
- Brodie Williams, Bath Performance Centre
- Abbie Wood, Loughborough Performance Centre
Jimmy Guy the living legend
He sacrificed personal gain for team glory
Legend!
Potential personal gain. Still to be enormously respected though.
Great to see University of Edinburgh swimmers finally being recognised for their quality! Shame the coaches are overlooked, Mat Trodden is a swimming genius and when he takes over, University of Stirling are finished in Scotland!
Cringe comment award!
Many of them coming off altitude training blocks so should hopefully see some fairly quick times
Interesting team with pretty much every major player in British swimming present except Peaty and Wilby. Seems there’s some athletes that weren’t really needed i.e. Oli Morgan, Cam Brooker and Jono Adam all selected for probably just the 2 sprint Backstroke events, same goes with Cox, Dawson and Medi Harris on the Women’s side. Also a bit weird to me that Leah Schlosshan was selected when Wood and Shanahan are on the team who should be picked for the 2IM.
Peaty and Wilby are really LC swimmers. Neither are anywhere near as good at SC.
Yes seems a bit strange in the backstrokes because they can only take two per event for Paris, so one of the girls is going to miss out and one or two of the boys if Luke Greenbank gets back on form
More than two entries are allowed from each country. Perhaps this is a good way of getting the best performances out of our swimmers?
Oh right forgot that 4 entries are allowed at european champs in each event (albeit only 2 can progress to semis)
Any idea of the kind of form Kathleen Dawson is in? She’s had a tough time since Tokyo.
She went from 61.2 in the 100 Back at Edinburgh in March to 60.2 at British summer champs in July, she’s making her way back albeit very steadily.
Without Russia and with slightly weaker German and Dutch teams this near A-team could well dominate the medal table. Excited to see Italy’s team.
I’m really surprised we sent our A-team to euros especially short course
For race practice?
And in particular perhaps, relay take-over practice!
A bit unfortunate that the only relays taking place are 4x50m.
How ridiculous! Though at least it is quality relay practice.
What the 50s wow!
Sharpening race skills.