Great Britain retain hold on Mixed relay world title

Alice Tai continued her four-day streak of golds, Ellie Challis completed her full colour set of medals in Singapore and Astrid Carroll scooped an impressive silver, ahead of the exciting finish to day four of the 2025 World Para Swimming Championships as the Mixed S14 4x100m Freestyle relay took centre stage.

William Ellard, Poppy Maskill, Dylan Broom and Georgia Sheffield joined forces for the latest triumph – with Great Britain’s hold on the title at both world and Paralympic level stretching back to its introduction to the programme in 2019.

World champions in the 200m Freestyle individual, Ellard and Maskill, set the team off to a blistering start over the first two legs, before passing the baton over to Broom to put some clear water in on the closely challenging Brazilian quartet who opted to swim their female athletes in the middle section of the relay.

Executing a safe final changeover, Sheffield was in the water and duly anchored the team to a new Championship record time of 3:41.14 to secure the gold.

“Leading the team out I obviously had to give the team a strong start, so to give them a good first leg to set us on the way to that time just outside the world record was really good. Obviously, the goal is to keep building this to LA – we’ve got a great team here and lot of good people coming through so it could be quite good for the future,” said Ellard.

Reacting to winning his maiden world title, Broom added:

“I’m just so thankful to be here. After swimming the 200m Free I was feeling kind of down [about missing the final] but I’m so happy about this and stoked to be part of this amazing team.”

Alice Tai remains in imperious form at these championships as she landed her fourth gold medal from four events so far.

Having tempered her heats swim to qualify for the Women’s S8 100m Freestyle final seeded third, Tai took the brakes off for the medal contest to speed out of the blocks and hit the turn with half a second lead.

Bringing it home strong, Tai was delighted to add another victory to her resume before turning focus to recovery for more racing ahead:

“The week is taking its toll a bit now, I’m definitely a bit tired having done a lot of racing but there’s still three days to go,” she said.

“I’m really happy with that time, it’s a season’s best and the fastest I’ve gone since my amputation so I’m over the moon with it. I’ve got to go and swim down and focus on recovery – tomorrow I’ve got the 50m Free and the relay so looking that forward to that.”

Completing her medal set, Ellie Challis retained the Women’s S3 50m Backstroke world title under the competition lights of the OCBC Aquatic Centre.

Getting up into her high stroke rate, the Paris 2024 Paralympic champion moved through the pack to assume the lead and take the gold - progressing her time by over a second from heats to final.

“I feel so good. My start was a bit messy but the race after that went really well,” said Challis.

“After the gold in Paris [last year], to come here and back up what I did in 2024 and 2023 I’m so happy. To finish my world championships on a high, I managed to complete the set - one bronze, one silver, one gold – I can look forward to a bit of a break now after a great week.

Meanwhile Astrid Carroll got herself a second medal at her debut worlds with a clutch swim in the Women’s SB12 100m Breaststroke.

Dropping over two and a half second from her personal best, the visually impaired swimmer delivered an impressive backend to her race to grasp the silver by three hundredths of a second ahead of China’s Jietong Zheng.

Earlier in the day, Bruce Dee competed in the Men’s S6 400m Freestyle heats, setting a big season’s best to get back close to his best time as he finished ninth overall.

Live and extended results of the Singapore 2025 World Para Swimming Championships can be found at www.paralympic.org/swimming/live-results, with live streaming of sessions on the Paralympics YouTube Channel.