Great Britain end successful European Championships with more golds
Great Britain secured their best showing at the European Swimming Championships and topped the medal table with two more golds on the final day of the event.
A pair of medley relay golds madeit26medalsintotalinBudapest, with 11 of them the top prize, at the conclusion of the competition on Sunday evening.
With the men’s 4x100m medley winning earlier in the day with a time of 3:28:29 minutes, beating their old record in the championship by nearly two seconds, the women’s 4x100m medley team backed it up to triumph in the last race in Hungary.
KathleenDawsonbrokethe British and European record on her opening leg of the final.
Dawson told BritishSwimming.com: “It’s great to finally get it, especially here.
“It’s amazing seeing the
British team doing so well – it was amazing seeing Cassie (Wilf ) and then the boys win tonight, that really lit a fire under me so I think I knew I was going to make it.”
AfterDawson’sstrongstart, European 200m breaststroke champion Molly Renshaw extended the advantage before LauraStephensandAnnaHopkin finished off the job with a time of 3:54:01 to take Russia’s championship record.
Renshaw added: “In general,thewholeweek,GBhavejust beensmashingit.Therelaysespecially have done so well and won so many golds.
“Coming into this and watching the boys in the call room win gold, we were just so pumped behind the scenes.
“We knew that if we were all swimming best times, we could be up there on top of the podium. It’s nice that we all delivered and Kat got a European record, so it’s amazing, we’re really happy.”
Luke Greenbank, Adam Peaty, James Guy and Duncan Scott joined forces for the men’s 4×100 medley and the success was not limited to the medley relays.
Cassie Wild impressed to take silver in the women’s 200m backstroke final with a new personal best of 2:07:74 to claim a podium at her maiden European Championships.
Ben Proud was also second inthemen’s50mfreestylefinal while Guy clinched bronze in themen’s100mbutterflyfinal.
MaxLitchfieldwasanother to claim a third place, this time inthe400mindividualmedley, after a fine finish during the last leg.
It meant GB added nine silvers and six bronzes to their 11 golds to end with 26 medals, which edged out Russia and Italy in the standings.