Anna Hopkin leads off 7th-place British 4 x 100m relay in Paris

PARIS – Arkansas alum Anna Hopkin started her Olympic Games on Saturday as the lead-off leg for the British 4 x 100m freestyle relay that finished seventh in the final with a time of 3 minutes, 35.25 seconds.

Hopkin produced the fastest 50m split among the opening legs in the final with a 25.10. Her 100m split of 53.31 was equal fifth fastest among the first leg splits. Following Hopkin on the Great Britain relay were Eva Okaro (53.75), Lucy Hope (54.95), and Freya Anderson (53.24).

Australia won the event in an Olympic record of 3:28.92 over an American record time of 3:30.20 for the United States while China finished third in 3:30.30. Meg Harris anchored the Aussies in 51.94 to break the previous Olympic record of 3:29.69 set by Australia in 2021.

The Aussies swam with the same foursome who established a world record of 3:27.96 in the 2023 World Championships.

Hopkin’s 50m split was ahead of the enroute time of 25.63 when the world record 100m first-leg split of 52.08 was established. Australia’s Mollie O’Callaghan was just off that mark with a 52.24 opening split to lead the field.

In the prelims held in the morning, Hopkin supplied a 54.08 split to put Great Britain in good position to finish second in the prelim and advance to an eight-team final. After leading the field with a 50m split of 25.34, the overall split by Hopkin was third best in the first prelim behind American Abbey Weitzeil (53.60) and Italy’s Sofia Morini (53.92).