Duncan Scott claimed silver and Tom Dean bronze in the men’s 200m individual medley final to up Great Britain’s medals tally at the World Aquatics Championships.
Scott missed last year’s championships because of Covid-19 but matched his result in the event at the Tokyo Olympics in Fukuoka, Japan, after clocking a time of 1min 55.95sec.
The six-time Olympic medallist was 1.13sec behind Leon Marchand, who stormed to his third gold in five days after triumphing in the 400m distance – where he set a new world record – and 200m butterfly.
Dean was dead last after the butterfly and backstroke legs and then seventh with 50m to go but powered home to round out the podium positions, finishing 0.12sec behind his compatriot Scott.
“I was absolutely gutted to miss out on worlds last year,” Scott said. “What I love to do is compete on the highest stage and not getting to do that last year was really upsetting.
“I’m just really happy to be back in the mix there. I stuck to what I wanted to do really well. I was just hurting at 150m more than I thought I would be - but to give myself a chance in the race, I knew I had to be there at 150m. I was really happy with that.”
Dean collected his second medal of the week having taken silver in the 200m freestyle, behind fellow Briton Matt Richards, who set a new British record of 47.45sec to finish fifth in the 100m discipline.
“I love being up there on the podium with my teammates because we are really good mates, it’s a united front with everyone on this team,” Dean said.
Scott and Dean were able to celebrate locking out two-thirds of the podium— (Getty)
Lauren Cox then took Britain’s medal haul to five, emulating their number from last year’s championships, as she collected bronze in the women’s 50m backstroke.
Cox, competing in her debut world championships, edged out Canada’s Kylie Masse by just eight-hundredths of a second as Kaylee McKeown took gold by pipping Regan Smith of the United States.
“I’m over the moon, it’s amazing,” Cox said. “I couldn’t believe it. I needed to look for about 30 seconds at the board before I could be like ‘wow, that’s me’.”
