In sync, our Olympic stars (shame no one will see them)
SUSPENDED gracefully in water, Team GB synchronised swimmers Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe display their skill and poise.
The duo have teamed up with lingerie label Bluebella for a campaign to encourage girls to be confident in their bodies and take up sport.
Miss Shortman, 1 , said: ‘We had a lot of negative comments about our bodies when we were at school, talking about your big shoulders, small boobs, small bum.
‘In the past year I began to feel a lot more confident about my appearance and now we are both proud of our muscular bodies.’ Miss Shortman, and Miss Thorpe, 20, both from Bristol, are taking part in the ‘artistic swimming’ discipline at the Tokyo games in two weeks’ time and are among Team GB’s leading contenders for gold medals.
Yesterday Olympics organisers confirmed that the games will be held entirely without spectators amid rising cases of the delta variant in the country. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced the controls and a state of emergency to ‘prevent the resurgence’ of Covid. Fans from abroad were banned months ago, as were the families of athletes, with tickets only available to locals, VIPs and diplomats.
There were 20 new Covid cases reported on Wednesday, up from 714 a week earlier, taking the national total to 810,000 cases. Only 15 per cent of Japanese are fully vaccinated, compared with over half of Britons.
Team GB announced yesterday it was entering its largest ever delegation for an Olympic Games on foreign soil, with 376 athletes and a further 22 reserve athletes set to compete across 26 sports.