Tom Dean became the first British male swimmer to win more than one gold medal at a single Olympics in 113 years after helping his nation to victory in the 4×200 metres freestyle relay final at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
Dean produced the performance of his life to triumph in the men’s 200m freestyle 24 hours earlier in a British record time, and he made a solid, if unspectacular, start in the relay race before his team-mates finished the job.
Alongside Dean was Duncan Scott, who claimed silver in Tuesday’s individual race, James Guy and Matthew Richards, and their time of six minutes and 58.58 seconds saw them bag Team GB’s third swimming gold of Tokyo 2020.
Dean is therefore the only British male swimmer to claim two golds at the same Games in more than a century, following in the footsteps of Henry Taylor, who prevailed in the men’s freestyle 400m and 1500m races in 1908.
Dean started the race and actually performed the slowest of the British quartet, with a time of 1min 45.72secs putting them behind the Russian Olympic Committee and the United States after the first 200m.
Guy, though, established a narrow lead for the pre-race favourites by the halfway stage with his split of 1:44.40 and despite a sluggish start Richards had taken that lead to more than a second with his 1:45.01.
Scott, whose runner-up finish behind Dean on Tuesday meant he collected his third Olympic silver, then brought it home in emphatic fashion with 1:43.45 as Britain finished more than three seconds ahead of the second-placed ROC and just 0.03secs off a world record time.
Scott told the BBC: “It’s really special with these boys. Matt in third was so composed and the boys up front executed their race plans really well. So close to a world record in the end – if anything I’m a bit gutted!”
Dean said: “I can’t even put it into words. I couldn’t yesterday and I can’t today. I can’t thank these boys enough, from the bottom of my heart. Unreal.”
Scott and Guy were part of the team that won silver in the event in 2016, and the latter added: “As a kid winning an Olympic gold medal was my absolute dream and to do it finally after 25 years is pretty emotional.”
For 18-year-old Richards, it was his first taste of an Olympic Games, and he said: “When you’re racing with guys like this, having a great leg comes easy. When they set you up as well as they did and you’ve got literally one of the best freestylers in the world and one of the best freestylers ever going behind you, (it’s a) privilege. And the confidence that gives someone, and the experience, money can’t buy it.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here