Australian debutant Rowan Crothers kicked off the relay, touching in third, before 13-time Paralympic champion Matthew Cowdrey, who already has three individual gold medals to his name from these Championships prior to the race, took the reins to push the Australians into contention behind the rapid Brazilians.

Matthew Levy took full control of the race on the third leg, giving his team-mate Brenden Hall a five-second lead for the final leg, and though he was run closer than perhaps he would have liked, Hall touched first in a time of 3min 51.14sec, half-a-second ahead of a strong Brazilian line-up in second and the Russians in third.

The women's 4x100m freestyle relay saw one of four gold medals won by Britain on the day, who celebrated another session glistening with gold as they surged up the medal table to second place behind the dominant Ukrainians.

Strong legs from Steph Millward and Susie Rodgers had Britain in contention at the halfway point, and Claire Cashmore set up the final leg showdown perfectly for Amy Marren to ease to victory and earn another gold medal for Britain in 4:27.95, nearly seven seconds ahead of Canada, who they had trailed for the first 200m, and the United States.

Britain's Ellie Simmonds wins her second gold medal of the IPC Swimming Championships, in the women's 200M individual medley, where she broke her own world record

British poster girl Ellie Simmonds was in blistering form in the SM6 200m individual medley, finishing 17 seconds clear of her competitors in her heat before smashing her own world record in the final, setting a record of 3:04.41 to take her second gold of the Championships and retain her title.

"I'm so happy with that race," said Simmonds, who had earlier successfully defended her S6 400m freestyle title in Canada.

"I was quite nervous going into the race but I knew that if I relaxed and gave it all I had I'd be okay.

"I've done a bit of training on IM and especially my breaststroke which has been moving on.

"I'm so chuffed to break my world record and to win another gold medal is brilliant.

"I'm surprised I'm on such good form after having three months off at London.

Germany's Verena Schott took silver, finishing some 11 seconds behind Simmonds, whilst Oksana Kruhl of Ukraine won the bronze medal.

Paralympic champion Jon Fox was another comfortable British winner on the night, finishing just two-tenths of a second off his own S7 100m backstroke world record time to retain his title despite a botched turn.

"That was a good swim," he said.

"I wasn't sure I had much more after the heats this morning but I'm pretty happy with a 69.6[sec] in that final.

"I had the worst turn in the history of my career but other than that it was the perfect final, I took on board everything Mick [Massey, his coach] said and it's paid off.

"It's always hard coming back after a Games and lots of athletes take quite a lot of time out.

"Some people in that race weren't swimming the times they were in London but fortunately for me I just keep getting faster and I'll try and continue to do that."

Silver and bronze medals went to Russia's Andrey Gladkov and Ukrainian Yevheniy Bohodayko respectively.

Sacha Kindred won his fourth consecutive SM6 200m medley world title as Britain took second in the medal table behind Ukraine at the World Championships in Montreal


There was even more gold for Britain when veteran swimmer Sascha Kindred successfully defended his SM6 200m medley world title for the third time at the age of 35 to clinch his sixth World Championship gold medal.

Kindred hovered around the leading pack, taking the lead in the breaststroke before powering home to victory in the freestyle, finishing with a time of 2:41.82, ahead of Brazil's Talisson Glock and Paralympic champion Xu Qing of China.

"That's my fourth medley title and I've won it since 2002 so I'm very proud," said Kindred.

"It was hard work but I'm really proud of a great result.

"It was just outside my PB (personal best) so it shows I was on good form as well."

The four gold medals won by Great Britain have moved them up to second place in the medal table with 12 gold medals, but it would take something astonishing to dethrone the Ukrainians, who lead the way with 19 victories.

"The team is doing so well here, we've won so many medals here already and it's just a great team to be part of," said Simmonds on the British team's performances in Montreal.

However, the seemingly unstoppable Ukrainians completed a golden quadruple of their own on day three, as Andriy Kalyna took 100m SB8 breaststroke gold, Olga Sviderska set a European record of 57.97 to win the women's 50m backstroke, Iarsoslav Denysenko won his first gold of the Championships by taking the men's 50m freestyle S3 title in 24.04, and Maksym Veraksa completed a stunning run of four gold medals in a row for Ukraine with victory in the men's 50m freestyle S12 with a time of 23.36.

Elsewhere, New Zealand's ever-impressive Mary Fisher completed a personal hat-trick of gold medals when she stormed clear in the 100m freestyle S11 to set an Oceania record of 1:9.61 and finish clear of Germany's Daniela Schulte in silver and China's Guizhi Li in bronze.

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