Great Britain's 4x100m freestyle relay team have stressed that they will not let up despite winning gold on the opening day of swimming action at the European Games.
The team of Duncan Scott, Martyn Walton, Daniel Speers and Cameron Kurle recorded a time of 3:19.38 to grab the top prize for Team GB at the Baku Aquatics Centre, holding off competition from Italy and Russia.
All four members have individual events to focus on throughout the rest of the week, and they insisted that their early success will not distract them from their other races.
After they picked up their gold medals - Great Britain's third of the day in the pool - they spoke to Sports Mole about their "unexpected" triumph.
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Congratulations lads, you're European champions - how does that feel?
Walton: "Amazing."
Scott: "Unexpected. We sort of knew we had a medal in us. We all stepped up. We knew we had something in us, and we delivered when we needed to so it was good."
Speers: "[Walton and Scott] gave me and Cam clear water at the end, so we were able to get out in front, swim our own race, go out hard and just try to hold on."
Walton: "It's been a great start tonight - I think we've won three golds and a bronze. We're obviously really happy with that as a team."
Speers: "Especially the other two golds. Those performances really lifted us to step up."
Walton: "Tomorrow is a new day, so we need to get focused and get ready for the next four days of competition and get some more medals. We're all competing in the 100m free tomorrow and, after tonight, we should have a good one. We all need to get in the swim down, get rested and smash tomorrow."
So it's already all eyes on the rest of the week then? No time to enjoy this medal?
Scott: "No, it's only day one so there are plenty more days to go, more racing to do."
Kurle: "It's day one tomorrow."
Walton: "We don't want day one to be our last day, and that's not what we're going to do."
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Duncan, you mentioned it was an unexpected triumph - what were your expectations going into the race?
Scott: "Britain's not known to be a 4x100m nation. It's never really had a 4x100m team. But at junior level over the last couple of years I think we've started to show that we can progress that onwards. This meet here we were struggling.
"The Russians and Italians looked strong, we had a ropey heat swim, but I think we just put that aside and thought, 'we're in the race, we may as well do something here', and I think we showed that."
How would you rate that performance?
Scott: "I think it was a 9.5/10. There is always room for improvement."
Is this the highlight of your career so far?
Kurle: "For me yeah, definitely."
Speers: "Yeah, definitely."
Walton: "Yep. [Scott] has got a Commonwealth silver so probably not!"
Scott: "I think it's up there. Because of how close we are, the four of us, as a group, it's really good. I was overwhelmed by it. I don't think I've ever jumped that high at the end after Cameron came in. I didn't even know what to do I was that happy. I can't even believe we've just won."
It's been a successful day overall for Team GB in the pool - what's the feeling in the camp at the moment?
Speers: "I'd say we had a slow start in the heats, if I'm honest. We really pushed on in the finals and that's what it's all about, so we've done a good job today."
Barney Corkhill
