Peaty secures Britain's first medal of the meet

Following a slower start down the first 25m, the three-time Olympic champion moved himself amongst the podium places as the race hit halfway. Upping the stroke rate down the back end of the race, Peaty then came within half a body length of the leaders towards the final few metres, before ultimately touching for his first World Short Course medal since Doha in 2014.

After missing the opportunity to defend his long course crowns at the World Aquatics Championships earlier this year through through injury, Peaty spoke about this event a being a challenge to ignite his hunger for success in the pending 2023 season.

“The swim tonight was a great building block, and it’s great to be on the medal board [for Britain] – I wish it was gold but pleased with a medal at this stage.

“I don’t get bronze often, so a bit of a weird one on the Wikipedia I guess! But I mean it’s the first competition I can count since the Olympics. Commonwealths was just a try-out really because of my foot and it’s exciting to now be back in the arena and I’m just enjoying it and the sport." Peaty added in conversation with World Aquatics TV.

“I would be disappointed [with bronze], but I’m not going to allow myself to be because some of the guys I’m racing have come off so much racing in the world cups, I’ve just put myself through a really hard block. It is what it is, I am what I am and they just out-skilled me there. I’m looking forward to a long course season after this week and I’ve got to be uncomfortable and challenged if I want to challenge that world record long course, so this is the challenge and the fight that I need and I just feel pure anger which is when I’m very dangerous!”

The Women’s 4x50m Freestyle provided the final event with British representation of the third day, and the team of Anna Hopkin, Isabella Hindley, Imogen Clark and Abbie Wood returned from a solid morning heats swims to line up in lane 2.

Hopkin led off superbly, passing over to Hindley with the team in first place. The team then managed to stay close to the higher ranked teams inside them as the race progressed, though slipped back into the chasing pack despite the best efforts of Hindley and Clark on the penultimate leg. Wood gained some ground as she anchored the team to a sixth place finish and a new British Record time of 1:37.11, eclipsing the previous record set in the year 2000.

Tom Dean returned to the pool, and was the first swimmer into action in the finals session, as he took the outside lane 8 in the Men’s 100m Freestyle. Olympic champion over the 200m distance, he kept within a body length of the field down the first 50 metres before shifting his pace to gain slightly on his competitors down the back end – touching in eighth place with a new personal best time.

The 400m Freestyle heats were also contested on Thursday morning, with Dean being joined by Dan Jervis, as they were both vying for the final over their lesser-preferred freestyle distance. Dean went the better of the two, as he managed to sneak into the top ten to finish just outside of the qualification places. Jervis finishing a fraction further back in fifteenth.

Medi Harris was also back in action for Thursday’s session in the heats of the Women’s 50m Backstroke, following her twelfth place finish in the 100 metre event. She went well down the length, but ultimately just missed out on progression to the evening’s semi-final – placing seventeenth and a tenth away from progression.

The full Championships schedule, event start lists and results can be found on the World Aquatics website, with live streaming available on the All Aquatics streaming platform.