Shortman and Thorpe win historic artistic swimming medal

Kate Shortman and Izzy Thorpe won Great Britain’s first ever Olympic medal in artistic swimming – performing an exquisite free routine to take silver in the duet.

The childhood friends, whose mothers also used to compete as a pair in the sport, performed their Rising Phoenix routine to score 294.5085 – for a combined total of 558.5367.

China’s Liuyi Wang and Qianyi Wang took gold (566.4783) and the Netherlands’ Bregje de Brouwer and Noortje de Brouwer won bronze (558.3963).

Shortman and Thorpe, who are two-time World Championship medallists, had sat fourth after Friday’s Big Ben-themed technical routine before delivering a high-energy free routine.

They looked stunned when they saw their names on top of the leaderboard with two teams still to compete, knowing they were guaranteed a medal.

They covered their mouths in disbelief before the hugs, and tears flowed while a sizeable Union Jack-waving contingent in the Paris Aquatics Centre erupted in celebration.

Shortman and Thorpe have known each other since they were little and have been swimming together since the age of nine.

Thorpe’s mum Karen competed alongside Shortman’s mum, Maria, in the 1980s and narrowly missed out on qualifying for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Shortman told the BBC earlier this year that she and Thorpe hoped to “carry on the legacy” of their mothers in Paris.

They have not only done that, but also made history.

Britain’s previous best finish in artistic swimming – formerly synchronised swimming – was the fourth place achieved by Caroline Holmyard and Carolyn Wilson in Los Angeles in 1984, when the event made its Olympic debut.

Their Olympic medal has been brewing for a while, having become the first Britons to win a duet medal at the World Championships earlier this year – where they took a silver and bronze.

Their rise has been helped by an overhaul of the sport’s scoring system last year, which made it less subjective and played more to their technical strengths.

There are now two judging panels, looking at the elements of a routine and artistic impression, while the pairs declare the difficulty of their routine themselves before swimming.

The previous system had 15 judges who scored across every aspect.

Shortman had considered quitting the sport before the change and her and Thorpe’s Rising Phoenix routine is a tribute to the scoring system change, which has now yielded the ultimate reward.