Shortly after Britain’s Olympic trials came to a close, Steve Parry was quoted as rating Britain’s women as third best in the world, just behind the US and Australia. That seemed a reasonable claim, but there was a nagging doubt that perhaps GB was closer to overtaking Australia than it seemed. So we thought we’d test it out.

Last November, word emerged from the FINA technical swimming committee that the introduction of mixed relays into international competition was being considered. Purely in interest, we looked at how Britain would make up relay quartets had the event been included in Shanghai last year