Swimming

Aquatics GB Announces Roster of 13 For 2024 European Championships In Belgrade

May 2, 2024

13 swimmers will be representing Great Britain at the European Championships in Belgrade, Serbia next month. The roster includes 3 swimmers that are slated to compete in the marathon swimming event, while 10 are focused on the pool swimming events. The marathon will take place on June 12th before pool action kicks off from the 17th through the 23rd.

Team GB’s roster is led by Ed Mildred, a medalist at the 2022 European Championships in Rome. At that meet, he claimed two medals in relay events, highlighted by a silver in the mixed 4×100 freestyle relay. His highest individual finish came in the 100 butterfly, where he touched in 51.79 for 9th overall.

19-year-old rising star Leah Schlosshan was also named to the roster. She won the 200 IM at the junior edition of these championships in both 2022 and 2023. In 2022, she finished in a time of 2:13.49 before improving to 2:12.41 en route to victory in 2023. She placed 4th in the event at last month’s British Olympic Trials with a best time of 2:11.65. She’s been on a clear progression for the past few years and will have the opportunity to earn her first senior international medal.

The roster does not feature many of the nation’s top ranked swimmers, such as world record holder Adam Peaty and Olympic Champions Duncan Scott, Tom Dean, Matt Richards, James Guy, and Anna Hopkin. The swimming portion of the 2024 Olympics is scheduled for just over a month after the European Championships, so their focus is fully on that competition. Back in 2021, however, all of those same swimmers competed at the European Championships in Budapest prior to the Tokyo Olympics. There was a lengthier two month gap between the meets in 2021 though, which provided them more training time between the competitions.

Aquatics GB Head of Performance Development Alan Lynn says of the squad announcement, “All 10 of the athletes selected for the pool swimming team produced some brilliant performances at the recent Aquatics GB Swimming Championships, and showed that they could deliver big swims when it mattered, in a packed and intense competition environment.”

“Heading into the summer, we know each swimmer will be looking to build on those swims to progress their experience and target season’s bests in Belgrade, when they will come up against a host of strong international athletes, including plenty who will be building towards the Olympics a few weeks down the line.”

“This is a pool that holds fond memories for a few of this group after a fantastic European Juniors last July when we saw the likes of Leah, Matthew and Holly put in some outstanding swims, and hopefully that is something they can harness a year on.”

“As for Hector, Leah Crisp and Toby in the marathon events, their focuses are very much on producing their best in Paris about seven weeks after the European Championships, so we know they will use this high-level racing opportunity as a key stepping stone towards the Olympics and to provide further indication of where they are at after some strong work in training over the months since February’s World Championships.”

See Team GB’s rosters for the championships below.

Pool Roster: