Medley Relays bring curtain down on Singapore 2025

The final night of the World Aquatics Championships saw Britain represented across the closing four finals of the schedule, culminating in the typical spectacle of the 4x100m Medley relays.

In the men’s event Oliver Morgan, Greg Butler, Ed Mildred and Duncan Scott stepped out onto poolside for the final and lined up in lane seven – with Matt Richards having anchored the team to qualify sixth out of the morning heats.

Each putting in solid legs across their respective strokes saw the men’s quartet into the wall in sixth place overall, with the team taking plenty of positives into the next stages of the Olympic cycle.

“We've got hold of our heads high - it's a long, hard week and the boys were really good. It’s a young team with not much experience there [in world finals], but I think we all really enjoyed it, got in there and had a good shot at it,” said Scot

“I think it's a really good time for us to put together in year one of a quad, and that's exciting some of the fastest swims at the boys have done this week are coming on the last day of the competition. I thought was impressive.”

On experiencing the atmosphere in the arena, Mildred added:

“With the fly I'm facing forward, so I couldn't see anything but could hear the noise ramping up, so I was like, either I'm going really well or something's happening around me. There's a lot of good fly lads in there and it was good to be put in the mix among them for a tough race and I think a good result for us at the end.”

Lauren Cox, Angharad Evans, Emily Richards and Freya Anderson combined forces as the British line-up for both the heats and final of the Women’s 4x100m Medley.

Using the energy of the occasion the foursome stepped it up to improve on their qualifying time by over a second as they finished eight on the world stage.

“I think we’re pretty happy, we had a lot of fun doing it and it was really good to take the process from this morning and bring it to tonight, try and improve on our times and our own race strategies and I think we all did that and pushed on the time a little bit,” said Anderson

“To be that inside the top eight in the world, we haven't I think made a final since 2019 so I just wanted to put in the best performance I could do after a long week and a long few weeks of being a long way from home,” added Evans.

“I think us four girls carried each other on that, and I had the best time racing with them.”

Elsewhere Freya Colbert rounded out her programme for the week with Women’s 400m Individual Medley event in which she won gold at Doha 2024, while Max Litchfield - a silver medallist 18 months ago at those unique world championships – equally progressed into the final of the men’s event on Sunday evening.

With an admitted focus on other events this season, Colbert reflected positively on her eighth-place finish ahead of bringing the medley back to her training with an increased priority for next season:

“I had to go in there and try my best. I’m proud of the performance I put down this morning [in the heats] considering I’ve not focused my training on the 400m medley – this year I wanted a bit of a step back after Paris, coming fourth was definitely difficult and I really wanted to focus on the 200m free where I achieved my goal of setting the British record earlier this week.

“This felt like a bit of a free hit and to see how I could do, and so making a world final is really positive to now look ahead into building on this next year as I balance training out and hopefully placing higher in both events.”

Litchfield meanwhile put in a combative performance that had him battling with the medal places at halfway, before drifting back to finish seventh as the sharp end of the race moved out of his grasp.

“I need to look back at what we did differently [to this morning] and what went wrong,” he said.

“At the end of the day it’s the first year of this cycle building into LA so we’ve still got a long way to go, and we move it on from here.”

Find highlights coverage of the World Aquatics Championships 2025 from Singapore at www.aquaticsgb.com/live.

Sunday 3rd August Swimming results

• Men’s 400m Individual Medley: Max Litchfield – 7th overall
• Women’s 400m Individual Medley: Freya Colbert – 8th overall, Abbie Wood – 10th overall
• Men’s 4x100m Medley: Oliver Morgan, Greg Butler, Ed Mildred, Duncan Scott and Matt Richards - 6th overall
• Women’s 4x100m Medley: Lauren Cox, Angharad Evans, Emily Richards and Freya Anderson – 8th overall

Extended results available on the World Aquatics website here.