Siobhan-Marie O’Connor and the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay team, anchored by James Guy, both delivered silver service in the Rio 2016 pool.
O’Connor sealed Great Britain’s first medal of day four with a stunning swim, which saw her push Hungary’s Katinka Hosszú all the way to the finish with a powerful last 50m. Hosszú held on for her third gold of the Games, but O’Connor touched in a clear second place, with a British 200m individual medley record of 2.06.88 and becomes the first ever British woman to win an Olympic medal in the event.
That was soon followed by a fantastic relay performance by the quartet of Stephen Milne, Duncan Scott, Dan Wallace and James Guy, who chased down Japan and Russia to claim second place. Guy had closed in on the USA’s Michael Phelps but his advantage was too much as the greatest Olympian of all time collected his 21st gold medal.
The results sees British Swimming achieve their lower medal range target of three medals, and their fourth medal in the pool takes Team GB’s overall total to six.
Other highlights from day four included:
Gymnastics
The GB quintet of Becky Downie, younger sister Ellie, Amy Tinkler, Claudia Fragapane and Ruby Harrold posted a sparkling display, culminating with a spectacular round of vaulting, but fell short of ending Great Britain's 88-year wait for a women's gymnastics team medal.
Despite a solid performance on the floor, they were unable to match a sensational USA showing as the Americans clinched gold by more than eight points. Russia and China excelled to complete the podium, leaving Great Britain to finish fifth, only 1.641 off third place.
Diving
Tonia Couch and Lois Toulson posted a personal best in the 10m platform synchro final with a score of 319.44 points to finish in fifth place overall.
They headed into the final round in fourth and well in medal contention but a huge final dive from Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion of Canada took the duo into third place and the British pair could not eclipse them with their final dive.
Canoe Slalom
That elusive Olympic gold medal remains out of reach for C1 world number one David Florence. An early mistake in the final cost the world champion dearly as he finished with a score of 109.00, leaving him stranded at 10th overall in the final standings.
Equestrian - Eventing
Great Britain rose to fifth in the final standings of the team eventing final with a solid recovery in the show jumping event. Having opened the competition with a fourth place in the dressage, an eighth-place finish in the cross country left Great Britain with a mountain to climb to reach the podium in the third and final stage. In the individual event, William Fox-Pitt came in 12th and Pippa Funnell finished 26th.
Rowing
Katherine Grainger confirmed her place in a fifth Olympic final and will seek to add to her four medals alongside partner Vicky Thornley after finishing fourth fastest in the women’s double sculls semi-final.
Stuart Innes and Alan Sinclair laid down a strong time to place second behind New Zealand in the men’s pair semi-finals, while Alan Campbell raced to second in his quarter final behind Croatia to qualify for the single sculls semi-finals. John Collins and Jonathan Walton crossed third in their semi-final to qualify for the men’s double sculls final in fifth.
Rugby Sevens
After the women’s team missed out in the bronze medal match yesterday, it was the turn of Great Britain’s men to take their Olympic bow.
Simon Amor’s team did just that in convincing fashion, running out 31-7 winners over Kenya in their afternoon opener. They followed that up with a massive victory. After Japan had taken down New Zealand earlier in the day, Britain edged out the Japanese 21-19 to take command of Pool C.
Sailing
Nick Dempsey made a dream start to the RS:X event to lead in the overall standings following three wins in the first four races. The GB windsurfer also recorded a second place in race three and a fourth place in race five to hold a slender advantage over long-time rival Dorian van Rijsselberge of the Netherlands with six races complete.
Giles Scott was in Olympic action for the first time as the finn competition got under way, and the world champion started slowly with a 17th in race one but recovered in race two to finish third and finish the day 10th overall.
In the women’s RS:X, world number one Bryony Shaw lies 10th in the standings through six races, while Nick Thompson and Alison Young are 12th and 18th in the laser and laser radial classes respectively through four races.
Hockey
Great Britain’s men got their first win of Rio 2016 on the board in style with an emphatic 9-1 victory over Brazil. The host nation took a shock lead in the fourth minute until GB took control to lead 3-1 at the interval with goals from Adam Dixon, Barry Middleton and Ashley Jackson.
Harry Martin made it four after half-time, before Sam Ward struck twice either side of Middleton and Jackson scoring their second to wrap up a dominant win and leave GB with one win, one draw and one loss in pool A.
Archery
Naomi Folkard advanced to the last 16 of the women’s individual archery competition in style with a 6-0 victory over Japan’s Kaori Kawanaka. Earlier the Brit had edged past Indonesia’s Ika Rochmawati by a score of 6-5.
Judo
Alice Schlesinger overcame Korea Republic’s Ji-Yun Bak to progress through the round of 32 in the women’s 63kg event but the Netherlands’ Anicka van Emden proved too strong in the last 16.
Click here to read our Look Ahead to Day 5.