‘Absolutely incredible’ – UWE Bristol responds to silver medal win for student Izzy Thorpe

The UWE Bristol community has congratulated sports rehabilitation student Izzy Thorpe, and her partner Kate Shortman, after the pair won a silver medal in artistic swimming at the Paris Olympics.

The childhood friends claimed a first Olympic artistic swimming medal for Great Britain with silver in the women’s duet. They performed a Big Ben-themed technical routine before delivering a Rising Phoenix free routine which impressed the judges and clinched the historic medal.

Debbie Hubbard, Associate Director at UWE Bristol for the subject cluster which includes the sports rehabilitation programme, described the performance as ‘absolutely incredible’.

She said: “Both Izzy and Kate’s performance was absolutely incredible. I felt an overwhelming sense of pride knowing that not only were they representing GB, but they are also one of our students. Huge congratulations to them both, their dedication and hard work has truly paid off.”

Head of UWE Bristol Sport, Alex Isaac, said: “UWE Bristol Sport are thrilled to celebrate student Izzy Thorpe and her duet partner Kate Shortman’s silver medal at the Paris Olympics. Medalling is a breakthrough for GB artistic swimming and a fantastic reward for Izzy, who has worked tirelessly throughout her heavy training schedule. Everyone at Team UWE is proud of Izzy for achieving her dream in becoming an Olympic medallist.”

Izzy, 23, from Westbury-on-Trym, and her duet partner Kate Shortman prepared for the competition with a gruelling regime, training ten hours a day for six days a week. Both Izzy and Kate followed in the footsteps of their mothers who were previously sychronized swimming partners before the sport became artistic swimming.

Izzy will be entering into her final year of studies at UWE Bristol in September.

BSc Sport Rehabilitation Programme Lead, Ellie Dooley, said there is a ‘buzz’ around the course staffing team following Izzy’s achievement.

The programme team passed on their congratulations to Izzy through Blackboard, email, and via a post on social media platform X which attracted a ‘like’ from BBC Olympics host Gabby Logan. The post said the team were ‘immensely proud’ of Izzy and looking forward to welcoming her back to university in September to complete her studies.

Ellie said: “With staff watching from the comfort of their own homes, the team group chat was a running commentary of pride and celebration on Saturday with the realisation that Izzy and Kate had won a medal. I'm not sure the fact we have an Olympic medal winner on the sports rehabilitation programme has sunk in just yet!”