The Great Britain women's team relay opened their campaign at the 2012 Modern Pentathlon World Championships with bronze in Rome.
The trio of Katy Burke, Kate French and Katy Livingston came home in third place behind Germany and China on the opening day in Italy.
With 12 teams contesting the relay, the British trio were eighth after the fencing and climbed to fifth after the swimming.
With the third best riding performance of the day, the British trio went into the run/shoot in fourth place behind leaders Korea, with reigning champions Hungary second and Germany third.
Burke handed over to French in third place after two shoots and runs, and Britain were still third when French passed on to Livingston.
Livingston dropped out of the top three in her opening shoot, but produced a strong final run to secure Britain's first medal of the championships.
China climbed from seventh to lead the field at the end of the final round of shooting, but Olympic champion Lena Schoneborn overhauled 2009 individual world champion Qian Chen on the final run to ensure Germany took gold.
The Britons are next in action on Thursday when Heather Fell, Samantha Murray, Freyja Prentice and Mhairi Spence contest the women's semi-finals aiming for places in the final on Saturday.
The championships are the final qualification event to reach the individual events at the 2012 Games.
British athletes must finish in the top three in the individual competitions to achieve the qualifying standard.