He said that they swam so well together because they had a lot of fun. 'We have a lot of fun with these relays. We take a lot of fun stuff from practise and put it into our races. That's why we were really successful tonight.'

Lochte, who is thought of as one of the most laid-back swimmers of world-class standard, was asked what he would achieve if he actually took swimming seriously.

'If I took swimming seriously I would probably not be that good. That's who I am. I am really laid-back. It's swimming, it's fun, so every time I get on the starting block and race its fun.

'So win or lose, yeah, I want to win, but if I don't ... whatever. I am still going to be Ryan Lochte at the end of the day.'

Berens said that it was good for the team to have swimmers like Lochte and Walters. 'Having Dave and Ryan on the same team on the same relay keep you pretty relaxed.

'They are both pretty chill guys. So it keeps us pretty calm at the back and it is good to have them there.'

The only time that even Lochte seemed to become serious was when he said what it meant to him to represent the relay team. 'It is definitely an honour to swim in a team USA and especially in a relay.

'I think my favourite part of swimming on team USA are those relays because you are not swimming by yourself. You are swimming as a team and you are all out there trying to do one thing, trying to get a gold. And that is what we did tonight.'

But Lochte would not be Lochte if he did not have something to add to that. 'Good thing for Dave that we did win, he went third tonight. I don't really like going last so hopefully we can work on that.'