FORMER Bournemouth Dolphins swimmer Amelia Maughan’s burgeoning international career took another step forward when she made a successful debut for the senior Great Britain team in Germany.

The 14-year-old European Youth Olympics champion was the youngest swimmer in either team as Britain took on a strong German squad in Essen.

Germany won the head-to-head match by 240 points to 195 to avenge the opposite result in Swansea a year ago.

Maughan, now based at British Swimming’s Intensive Training Centre in Bath, came fourth in the individual 200m freestyle in 2:03.09 and was invol-ved in Britain’s only win from the six relays on the programme.

This was the 4x200m freestyle in which her illustrious team-mates were European and Commonwealth 400m medley champion Hannah Miley, Commonwealth 200m freestyle silver medallist Jazz Carlin and Commonwealth Games relay medallist Emma Saunders.

Maughan’s long-course split time of 2:03 was three seconds short of her best but she, like the rest of the team, was still in hard training ahead of next month’s British Championships in Manchester. She was close to her best in the 4x50m freestyle, however, recording 25.7sec on the third leg.

In Manchester, Maughan – who currently holds four British age group records – will be bidding to qualify for this summer’s European Junior Champion-ships in Belgrade and World Championships in Shanghai.