DROITWICH swimmer Matt Richards is part of the Team GB freestyle 200m relay team which has won gold at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
The 18-year-old swam the third leg of the race, after the first two by Tom Dean and James Guy.
After the first leg, the British quartet were in third place, with Guy edging the team ahead.
Richards increased Team GB’s lead and handed over to Duncan Scott who put in another amazing leg and the team finished just 0.03 outside the World Record.
Modest Matt was full of praise for his team mates.
He said: “When you’re racing with guys like this, having a good leg comes easy.
“When they (Tom Dean and James Guy) set me up as well as they did and then you know you’ve got one of the best freestylers in the world and one of the best freestylers ever (Duncan Scott) going behind you, the privilege and confidence it gives and the experience it gives for someone my age, money can’t buy that.”
It has been a fantastic week for Team GB after Adam Peaty’s gold in the breast stroke and then the Brit one-two from Dean (gold) and Scott (silver) in the individual 200m freestyle.
Richards, swam at Royal Wolverhampton Swimming Club since childhood, before transferring to the National Centre in Bath last year.
At the 2018 European Junior Championship when Richards was just 16, he took the 100m freestyle gold in a time of 48.88s – making him the seventh-fastest British swimmer in history in the event across all ages.
