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World Championships, Day 8 Finals: Great Britain’s Freya Colbert Rallies Down Stretch for 400 IM Gold
Ahead of the final of the women’s 400-meter individual medley at the World Championships, it was evident a door was open for the eight finalists in Doha. The final was missing all three medalists from last summer’s World Championships in Fukuoka – Canadian Summer McIntosh, American Katie Grimes and Australian Jenna Forrester – and no athlete used prelims to make a statement to the rest of the field.
Ultimately, it was Great Britain’s Freya Colbert who walked away with the gold medal, and the first world title of her career.
Sitting in fourth place heading into the freestyle leg and in third with a length remaining, Colbert was able to track down Israel’s Anastasia Gorbenko and Italy’s Sara Franceschi to earn the biggest win of her career. Colbert finished in a time of 4:37.14, thanks to a final 50 freestyle of 31.31. That flurry enabled Colbert to get by Gorbenko, who picked up the silver medal in 4:37.36. Another half-second back for bronze was Franceschi (4:37.86).
Colbert was the bronze medalist in the 400 medley at the 2022 European Championships and earlier this week helped Great Britain to the silver medal in the 800 freestyle relay.
The winning time was the slowest in the event at the World Championships since 1994 in Rome, when China’s Dai Guohong was the titlist in 4:39.14.
