After six busy days of racing, the GB quartet all delivered outstanding legs of swimming to come in behind the world-record-setting United States foursome, ensuring the Aquatics GB team rounded the meet out with their third medal – and completing a podium hat-trick for Wood, who had already secured two individual medley bronzes.

Add in a short-course world junior record for 18-year-old Okaro in the Women’s 50m Freestyle final earlier in the session as she placed fourth in that showpiece, and it was an eye-catching Sunday evening all-round for the British team.

The medley relay medal moment was kicked off by Wood on backstroke – an unusual role for the Aquatics GB Performance Centre Loughborough competitor, although it was testament to her versatility that she clocked a personal best and handed over in fifth, before breaststroke specialist Evans (University of Stirling) moved Britain up to third with four strong laps of short-course swimming.

Okaro’s (Repton) butterfly leg was her second appearance of the finals session after that outstanding sprint freestyle final earlier on – but she showed no signs of fatigue, maintaining GB’s positioning in third to hand over to the experienced Anderson on the anchor freestyle leg. The Aquatics GB Performance Centre Bath athlete was never going to let that podium place slip, and as she often does at the back-end of a relay, Freya in fact clawed back the advantage that China in second had to get to the wall superbly for silver, in a new British record of 3:47.84. It meant a first women’s medley relay medal for GB at World Championship level – across long or short-course – in 16 years.

“This event started off as a bit of fun, and then at the start, I was doing a backstroke start in a world final and I was like, ‘okay, this is actually quite serious now!'” said Wood afterwards.

“I back myself for the underwaters, but backstroke as a stroke is probably my weakest stroke, so I just knew I had to hammer the underwaters and spread my energy across the whole 100m, and I think I managed it better than this morning. It’s quite fun to learn a new event and do it with the girls, me and Eva were definitely put out of our comfort zones and it was just fun!”

Evans added: “I’m so pleased with that, I think that was my seventh 100m of the meet, so I’m slowly learning each time, but also each time, I’m enjoying it more and more – and racing with the girls on the last night is all the experience I’ve needed for this meet, it’s been a lot of fun.”

As for Okaro, how did she reflect on a memorable couple of hours?

“This has been a great last day! Finishing it off with the relay, with the girls, it’s been the most I could ask for. A really fun way to end the meet, and I’m really happy,” she said.

“[The 50m Freestyle final] was amazing. It’s a really fast pool, that’s for sure, and a world junior record for me, I can’t really ask for more. This pool is great, I’ve had some really great swims in this pool, PBs all round – and obviously raing with Gretchen [Walsh, new world-record holder] is insane, that’s crazy. In the callroom, it was really tense, but it was really good.

“I love racing, I love racing against the best because it allows me to push myself. I also just love the experience, get to travel across the world and race against different people, I just love it.”

That fourth-placed finish in the 50m Freestyle finale – a race that brought a new world record from Gretchen Walsh – was a truly impressive result from Eva, on another evening where GB’s women showed impressive progress so early in the LA Olympic cycle.

On top of those results, Sunday evening saw Anderson secure a top-five finish in the Women’s 200m Freestyle final, just half-a-second off the podium and a big drop her morning heats swim. The heats also brought a new personal best for Max Litchfield in the Men’s 200m Freestyle as he went 1:43.59, while the Men’s 4x100m Medley Relay team of Oliver Morgan, Archie Goodburn, Jacob Peters and Josh Gammon were 13th.