Best of August: History made in the sunshine

Monthly review and preview 02 Sep 25

With summer drawing to a close, British athletes made the most of the sunshine as they added to Team GB's medal haul in August.

With summer drawing to a close, British athletes made the most of the sunshine as they added to Team GB's medal haul in August.

From World Championships to the Diamond League, here's the best of last month.

Medals and more in Singapore

August kicked off with a splash as Great Britain retained their men's 4x200m freestyle relay title at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.

The quartet of Matt Richards, James Guy, Jack McMillan and Duncan Scott proved yet again why they were the ones to beat as they held off China and Australia in a thrilling finish, clocking in at a combined time of 6:59.84.

Elsewhere, Ben Proud added another winning medal to his trophy cabinet by claiming a sensational silver in the men's 50m freestyle final.

Proud backed up his credentials as one of the world's finest in the discipline with a tenth consecutive major championship podium - a streak that extends all the way back to the 2021 Abu Dhabi World Short Course Champs.

The Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist finished with a time of 21.26, an achievement beaten only by Australia's Cameron McEvoy while Freya Colbert eclipsed a British record in the women's 200m freestyle final.

The 21-year-old finished fourth after the final 25m but touched in at 1:55.06 to surpass Joanne Jackson's 16-year-old record from Rome 2009.

Riding for the record books

Over in Denmark, Beth Shriever became a three-time UCI BMX Racing World Champion after pipping Australian rider Saya Sakakibara and the Netherlands' Judy Baauw.

Shriever started as she meant to go on in the final, leading into the first corner before pulling away to cross the finish line in 35.614 seconds, more than a second clear of Paris 2024 gold medallist Sakakibara.

"It feels absolutely incredible," said Shriever to BBC."It's been a mad, mad day of racing. I scraped through the semi and just said this is all or nothing now. I'm gassed to take home the win."

Elsewhere, Matt Richardson became the fastest track cyclist in the world when he broke the nine-second barrier in the UCI Men's Elite 200-meter Flying Start.

He first achieved the feat by recording a time of 8.941 seconds, the first time anyone had clocked in under nine seconds in the event, held at the Konya velodrome in Turkey, before shaving off a further 0.084 seconds in his follow-up attempt and setting a new best time of 8.857 seconds.

Shooting for silver

Returning to the Paris 2024 venue of Chateauroux, France, Matt Coward-Holley claimed men's trap silver at the European Shooting Championships.

The two-time Olympian sharpshooter finished with a score of 47 from 50 targets, missing out on gold to Italy's Massimo Fabbizi by just one shot and claiming his second silver medal in two months after doing the same at the World Cup in Lonato last July.

“I've been away from the UK for nearly seven-and-half weeks now so we've done a lot of shooting and obviously getting silver at the World Cup in Lonato and then coming here with silver now, all the hard work is paying off,” said Coward-Holley.

“The first 25, I don't think anybody was going to miss. It was a very strong final and the guy who won it shot 48 so you can't really do much about that.”

History made in Switzerland

Keely Hodgkinson showed yet again why she is one of her country's greatest sporting talents by powering past the meeting record to win the 800m at the Silesia Diamond League.

The Olympic champion had not competed since her golden moment in Paris last summer after a injury-stricken start to her season kept her away from the track.

But her much anticipated return came in incredible form, as the fleet-footed superstar ran 1:54.74 to finish well clear of Kenya's Lilian Odira and Botswana's Oratile Nowe in what was her second fastest-ever time in the event and a new world lead.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better start this season,” said Hodgkinson. “When the pace goes like that, you just forget about everyone else and it paid off with a solid performance.”

The records don't stop there, as high jumper Morgan Lake became the first British woman to ever clear two metres.

Lake performed the feat during the Diamond League final in Zurich, finishing third overall to add to her burgeoning reputation.