Bury's James Guy and his swimming teammates Tom Dean, Matt Richards and Duncan Scott retained their men’s 4×200 metres freestyle relay title to give Team GB their first Olympic gold of the Paris Games in the pool.

Richards had come within two-hundredths of a second of winning the individual event, settling instead for silver, as did Adam Peaty, who lost by an identical margin in the men’s 100 metres breaststroke.

But there was no need for a photo finish on Tuesday evening as, while Team GB led by just half a second after the final exchange, Scott pulled away on the anchor leg to seal an ultimately comfortable win.

A time of six minutes and 59.43 seconds was 1.35 secs ahead of runners-up the United States while bronze medallists Australia were a further 1.2 seconds back.

Scott’s leg of 1min 43.95 secs was the race’s fastest and would have won him gold in the individual event on Monday, when he finished a disappointing fourth, just 0.08s off bronze and 0.15s off top spot.

In being part of the first Team GB relay team to retain a swimming crown, Scott joined fellow Scot Sir Chris Hoy on seven Olympic medals – only Sir Bradley Wiggins and Sir Jason Kenny have more.

Guy has six – all in relay events – while Dean celebrated his third, all of them gold, with Richards on three as well after Team GB justified their billing as red-hot favourites for top spot.

They have an embarrassment of riches in the 200m distance, so much so that Dean was unable to defend his individual title from Tokyo 2020 after losing it in qualifying to Richards and Scott.

Jack McMillan, who represented Ireland at the last Olympics, and Kieran Bird deputised ably for Richards and Scott in the morning heats as Team GB qualified fastest, nearly half a second quicker than the USA.

Great Britain’s James Guy in actionGreat Britain’s James Guy in action (John Walton/PA)

They brought back their big guns for the showpiece to bring back together the quartet who won in Tokyo.

Guy, who won a lifetime best in the morning, once again got their noses in front and Dean kept them there despite a wobble mid-swim – where Team GB slipped to fourth at one stage.

Richards then handed over the baton to Scott and he rubberstamped the win to give Team GB their fourth Gold of these Games.