World Swimming Championships: Great Britain claim gold in 4x200m freestyle

Great Britain's men's 4x200m freestyle team successfully defended their title as GB secured a fourth medal of the 2017 World Championships in Hungary.

Three of the line-up - James Guy, Duncan Scott and Stephen Milne - helped Team GB secure Olympic silver in 2016 - with Nick Grainger the new addition.

Russia took silver ahead of the USA.

The latest success follows two gold medals for Adam Peaty (50m and 100m breaststroke) and gold for Ben Proud (50m butterfly) at the championships.

• Podcast: 'Animal' James Guy delivers GB gold in 4x200m relay

The British team had looked out of medal contention during the first two legs of the 4x200m final, but individual finalist Scott helped bring them back into contention.

Guy took over on the last leg in second position but quickly powered past his Russian opponent to help the team finish in seven minutes 1.70 seconds, ahead of Russia (7:02.68) and Olympic champions the USA (7:03.18).

The 21-year-old enjoyed a hugely successful day, lowering the British 100m butterfly record to 51.16 in the heats and then to 50.67 in the semi-finals - form that makes him a strong medal contender for Saturday's final.

Murdoch sees positives

Ross Murdoch could only finish fourth in the 200m breaststroke

There was disappointment however for Ross Murdoch in the men's 200m breaststroke with the Scottish Commonwealth champion finishing fourth - 0.65 seconds behind bronze medallist Ippei Watanabe of Japan.

Russian Anton Chupkov took the gold ahead of Japan's Yasuhiro Koseki.

"It's hard to finish fourth and to go slower in the final than I did in the semi-final - just like in the 100m," admitted Murdoch.

"To be honest though I'm happy to be back swimming in my favourite event and this will give me a lot of confidence going into next year's Commonwealth Games."

World short course gold medallist Molly Renshaw finished sixth in the 200m breaststroke final, which was won by Russia's Yulia Efimova.

"I'm happy with how I performed because it was always going to be difficult from an outside lane, and I'm back getting close to the form from Rio [Olympics]," she told BBC Sport.

Holly Hibbott reached the women's 800m freestyle final, where she will race against Olympic champion Katie Ledecky of the USA.

Olympic champion Simone Manuel of the USA won 100m freestyle gold ahead of Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom - who earlier in the week set a world record of 51.71 - with Denmark's Pernille Blume third.

Russia's Evgeny Rylov set a new European record of 1:53.61 to claim gold in the 200m backstroke final, ahead of American pair Ryan Murphy and Jacob Pebley.

In the men's 27m high diving event, Britain's defending champion Gary Hunt topped the standings in the preliminary round.

He and countryman Blake Aldridge - who dived alongside Tom Daley at the 2008 Beijing Olympics - will return for the final on Sunday.