When GBR Took Gold With Harri Queen Of Scots On A 1:03.75
Women's 4x100 Medley: Victories for Keanna Macinnes and then her once more with mates in the medley relay confirmed Great Britain as the biggest hauler of gold at the European championships with eight wins, Italy closest two adrift
Lauren Cox, Angharad Evans - with a mighty fastest-ever 1:03.75 split on breaststroke that explains why teammates call her 'Harri Queen of Scots'; - Keanna Macinnes, an hour after lifting gold in the 200m butterfly, and Freya Colbert claimed gold in a championship record of 3:53.50.
Macinnes set the tone with gold and a career high 2mins 05.90 the rewards for setting a blistering pace early in the race and then “holding on for all I was worth” to fend off Denmark’s Helena Rosendahl Bach by 0.24sec at the touch.
An hour later, Macinnes was dashing to her blocks again with her medley teammates. Cox handed over on backstroke in fourth place, a second off the pace of the star of the Italian team and world-record setter on backstroke this week, Sara Curtis. Two lengths of breaststroke later, Evans had clawed back the deficit with a 1:03.75 split. Yes: 1:03.75!
Macinnes then held her ground on ‘fly and handed over to Colbert 0.2sec behind the Italians. Two lengths of freestyle later, Colbert brought the gold home 0.1sec to the good. After celebrating in the pool, the team confirmed they were off to a VIP party to let their hair down, but would spare us the details :)
Evans’ split is the fastest 100m breaststroke split in a relay ever, by 0.2sec. Here's where it fits:
- Angharad Evans (GBR) - 1:03.75 (2026 European Championships)
- Yulia Efimova* - 1:03.95 (2018 European Championships)
- Chen Huijia Chen (CHN) - 1:04.12 (shiny suits - 2009 World Championships)
- Lilly King (USA) – 1:04.15 (2017 World Championships, for USA medley relay gold)
The Paris 2026 Race and Splits in full:
The fastest ever win in the 4x100m medley relay at Europeans had been the 3:54.01 in which Great Britain won the 2020 (in 2021) title in Budapest. Now
Where the national men’s team have led the rise in the ranks of swimming elite in the past decade, it was the women who stole the show in Paris.
Those two golds not only added up to “five and half wins to the women over two and half for the men”, as Colbert put it, the halves accounted for by a mixed relay, but the swim sorority’s final flurry blocked Italy from converting its last-day chances to an overhaul of Britain on gold count.
- A full set of quotes from the relay champions and Britain head coach Steven Tigg will follow ... on separate file tomorrow in the wrap
That 0.1sec win represented the smallest winning margin in the history of the event, the previous record a 0.11sec margin when Great Britain beat Germany back in 2006. Bronze for the neutrals here in Paris 0.29sec away from gold made the 2026 podium the tightest on the clock since the medley relay joined the program in 1958. The tightest podium had dated back to that inaugural year, when the gap between Dutch gold and British bronze was 1.3.
Some things remain. The biggest winning margin remains the one where the GDR beat Germany by 9.72 in 1974 as the state doping system began to motor. And that accounts for the top of an all-time medals table that looked like this coming in to Paris:
Great Britain now has six golds and is three shy of toppling the GDR. Roll on 2032.
Men’s 4×100 Medley Relay
A nail-biter ended in gold for the neutrals B, Egor Kornev's 46.85 freestyle split delivering a 3:28.67 victory.
It was silver for Italy in 3:28.86. the hosts France third in 3:29.03 as Léon Marchand clocked a 49.64 'fly split to contribute a bronze to his Sunday haul of gold in the 400m freestyle in French-record time. Britain, 0.44sec from gold, finished fourth.
The History Files below ...
