The British men's 4x200 freestyle swimming team have beaten the national record and bagged the country's first medal of the World Championships in Perth, Australia.

The bronze medal follows the foursome's victory in the European Championships last August -- and they came agonisingly close to the relay silver.

Paul Palmer, Gavin Meadows, Andrew Clayton and James Salter were pipped to second place by the Dutch by just over half a second, with Australia easily taking gold.

The US team, the Olympic champions, could finish only fifth after a tired Tom Dolan slowed in the final leg.

Record time

The British team's time of 7 min 17.33 sec is a new national best, beating their previous record set when they claimed the European title last August.

James Salter said after the race: "We needed that medal. The team had been a bit down today because we knew that we hadn't swum as well as could have so far. But this could be the performance to fire us up for the rest of the championships.

"We didn't expect to get a British record, it was just a case of racing hard. But it's great to beat the Americans.

"Perhaps they made a mistake in putting Dolan on the last leg and I knew when I caught him that we were certain of getting a medal.

"I had been nervous all afternoon. In a way I'm disappointed I couldn't get the silver medal for the team, but the bronze is what we were expected to get. It shows what we can do at this level."

So close to silver

When Salter took off he was in equal third place with the Dutchman, but a superb first 150 metres enabled him to overtake American Tom Dolan, who was tiring having won the 400 metres individual medley only minutes earlier.

The 21-year-old looked likely to give Britain silver medal glory, only to see Anders Jensen catch him with the finish in sight.

But bronze still gave the team something to celebrate on the second day of the championships. It is also their first world championship medal in this event since 1975.

Australia won in a championship record of 7 min 12.48 sec and the Dutch time was 7 min 16.77 sec.
 

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