Not that long ago, if you'd have suggested that Great Britain's 4x200m free quartet would be heading into an Olympic Games as defending champions with Olympic gold and silver, four world titles in the past 5 times of asking when the best in water gathered for the showcase, a Commonwealth crown ahead of the land of Thorpe and Hackett, the most polite reply you might have expected would have been "yeah, in your dreams..."

Well, it's been reality ever since this at Fukuoka 2023 last year:

6:59.08: Duncan Scott (1:45.42) Matt Richards (1:44.65) James Guy (1:45.17) Tom Dean (1:43.84) - all-time No2 in textile, Joe Litchfield (1:47.14) having helped them qualify.

After this ... 

6:58:58: Tom Dean (1:45.72) James Guy (1:44.40) Matt Richards (1:45.01) Duncan Scott (1:43.45) - World textile best (0.03sec shy of 2009 WR), European, Commonwealth and British record: Tokyo 2020ne Olympic Gold, with Calum Jarvis (1:45.53) taking a gold, too, for helping the team qualify in prelims.

In the mix was not just an historic thumbs-up line for Britain but a rare historic thumbs-down for the United States: fourth! The Americans had never missed an Olympic relay podium all the way back to London 1908, when Britain won the crown for the first time and last time before Tokyo 2020ne. 

Between then and 2016, the USA claimed 17 gold, 5 silver and 2 bronze medals in 25 times of asking, the one miss when the Americans were missing, in 1980 because of the boycott of the event over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Before Tokyo,  the USA  had enjoyed a bull run of four straight victories, its last defeat by the Australians at home-Games Sydney 2000, Thorpe the lead Thunder from Down Under.