Since winning bronze four years ago in Beijing, Cochrane’s main motivation for London Olympics was the swim his best ever time — and a medal, of course.

The Canadian accomplished both those things.

The Victoria swimmer captured silver in the men’s 1,500-metre final on Saturday in London, finishing in a time of 14 minutes, 39.63 seconds. It was his best time since clocking a 14:40.84 during the preliminaries of the 1,500m in Beijing.

China’s Sun Yang, the 2011 world champion, broke his own world record by finishing in 14:31.02. Tunisian Oussama Mellouli, the 2008 Olympic gold medallist, reached the last podium spot in14:40.31.

Cochrane, along with Sun, was actually under world-record pace during the first portion of the race.

Cochrane made a wise decision not to try and keep up with the remarkable Sun, who beat the Canadian by more than 10 seconds at the world championships.

The 23-year-old worked well within the framework of his game plan, displaying great endurance throughout the grueling race. As the swimmers headed toward the last 100 metres and the final bell — the area of the race which Cochrane calls the “Bell of Angels” — the Canadian was in strong enough form to hold off Mellouli.

It was the second medal in the pool for Canada — the most since three were earned at the 1996 Atlanta Olympis