WIRRAL swimmer Freya Anderson helped Great Britain secured a top-five finish in the Women's 4x200m Freestyle Relay at the Olympics.

The 23-year-old, who won gold as part of the British team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in mixed 4x200 metre medley relay, was selected for Team GB’s 33-strong swimming squad for this summer’s Olympics despite missing out on automatic qualification after contracting glandular fever at the start of the year.

Anderson attended St Joseph's primary school in Birkenhead and then Upton Hall Convent School before winning a scholarship to Ellesmere College in Shropshire.

At La Defense Arena on Thursday evening, the quartet of Anderson, Freya Colbert, Abbie Wood and Lucy Hope - supported by Medi Harris, who was replaced by Colbert after the heats - put together a brilliant combination of relay swimming in a world-class final to place fifth, in an event that last saw Team GB reach an Olympic final when they placed seventh at London 2012.

In this showpiece, Colbert set the tone with a stunning opening leg, clocking a new personal best of 1:55.95 to hand over fourth to Wood. Wood took things out hard across her opening 100m and then held on to maintain fourth place, while Anderson showed good back-end speed and Hope brought things home on the anchor leg as GB touched fifth.

"I think we were hoping for a little bit better but that field is just extraordinary. Being in front of that crowd, alongside these girls, it’s just such fun and good to get out there and race among the best in the world," said Hope.

"The cheers were so loud I was shaking. This atmosphere is second to none especially when there’s French swimmers out there. It’s the fastest it’s ever been at the Olympics so it’s just nice to be out there against the best in the world."