Bendigo's Jenna Strauch completed her first FINA World Championships with two silver medals.
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After claiming silver in the 200m breaststroke, the 25-year-old was part of the Australian 4 x 100m medley relay team which finished an agonising 0.47 of a second behind the United States in an enthralling final in Budapest on Sunday morning (AEST).
Strauch was superb in swimming the second leg of the relay.
She improved almost two seconds on her leg from the relay heats to claw back a place and close the gap on the Americans, changing over in second place at the halfway mark.
Butterfly swimmer Brianna Throssell maintained second place in the third leg, before Mollie O'Callaghan produced the fastest freestyle split of the relay, but it wasn't quite enough for the Australian team to reel in the Americans.
In her first two major international finals, Strauch was a cumulative 1.1 seconds away from winning two gold medals.
"It was just a matter of going out there and doing the best that I could for these girls to put them in the best position to do the best they could,'' Strauch said.
"It was fun to be out there and exciting for me to finally be standing with these girls on the podium."
O'Callaghan lauded her relay team-mates for an outstanding swim.
"I'm extremely proud of the girls, they should be very proud of themselves."
Backstroke star Kaylee McKeown praised the efforts of the entire Aussie squad.
"It's an awesome team to be a part of, it always is, no matter what our medal tally is,'' she said.
"To get up off the back of an Olympics last year it's incredibly hard and a real testament to us as Aussies and our drive and determination to build on that depth within this team."
Strauch and her team-mates now prepare for next month's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
They have training camps in Spain and then France before relocating to Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games from July 28-August 8.
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