KATHLEEN Dawson and James Guy helped Great Britain break an Olympic record in their latest race at the Olympic Games.

Former Great Sankey High School pupil Dawson and ex-Cardinal Newman student Guy teamed up with Adam Peaty and Freya Anderson in the heats for the new mixed 4x100m medley relay race.

Their combined efforts allowed Team GB to dominate their heat, winning by a margin of just over two seconds from the United States to fly into Saturday's final.

Their time of 3mins 38.75secs was comfortably the quickest of the qualifying teams and puts them in good stead for the final – currently scheduled for 3.43am UK time on Saturday.

Dawson, who came sixth in the women's 100m backstroke event earlier this week, led the team off in the backstroke leg and clocked an impressive split time of 58.50secs before handing over to 100m breastroke champion Peaty.

Guy, who pulled out of the men's 100m butterfly heats in order to focus on this race having claimed gold in the men's 4x200m freestyle relay yesterday, then got GB into the lead before Anderson finished things off in the freestyle leg.

Heat result:

1 Great Britain 3:38.75 (Olympic record)

2 United States 3:41.02

3 Netherlands 3:43.05

4 Germany 3:44.19

5 Canada 3:46.54

6 Brazil 3:46.74

7 Hungary 3:47.15

8 Poland DSQ