Daniel Fogg came a highly-creditable fifth in the open water in the Serpentine as Great Britain's swimming campaign at London 2012 came to an end.
Fogg was equal 22nd in a 25-man field at one point but fought his way back with a strong finish although he was 37 seconds off Richard Weinberger of Canada in third and 42.2secs behind winner Oussama Mellouli, who became the first swimmer to win Olympic gold in both the pool and open water following his victory four years ago in the 1,500m freestyle in Beijing.
Open water is notoriously unpredictable but Fogg covered the spectrum of placings from third to 22nd. Emerging in the bronze medal position after the first lap, the 24-year-old dropped to equal 13th, climbed back up to sixth and then dropped 16 places.
The Loughborough ITC swimmer came out of the fifth and penultimate lap in 16th before making full use of his speed as a 1,500m freestyle swimmer to clamber to within two places of the podium a year after finishing 15th at the World Championships in Shanghai.
Fogg, who initially had no idea where he had finished, said: "I had a really good start, I was really happy with the first lap and how it went. I was right on Mellouli's feet the whole way and it was extremely easy.
"If the whole race could have gone like that it would have been really nice but I think I backed off a bit in the middle.
"It was just a matter on the last lap or two trying to take the person in front and then the person in front and then put the hammer down for the last lap.
"I am really happy with fifth, it's higher than I thought I could do."
Fogg is far smaller than many of his opponents in what can be a violent event, with kicking and punching at every turn.
However, Fogg said: "I didn't think it was too bad - there are only 25 guys in there rather than the 60 in the World Champs so it was going to be a bit more of a tactical race."