Inverness swimmer Stephen Milne scoops silver at Rio Games
The Rio pool produced more silverware for Team GB - with Inverness swimmer Stephen Milne scooping silver.
The Rio pool produced more silverware for Team GB - with Inverness swimmer Stephen Milne scooping silver.
Britain drafted in James Guy from the semi-final, with the 20-year-old from Bury joining the Highland's Stephen Milne and Scot's Duncan Scott and Dan Wallace.
Team GB were well down after Milne's opening leg but Scott and Wallace pulled them back into contention with 200 metres to go and Guy overtook the Japanese team on the final leg to claim silver.
There was a degree of redemption for Guy, who went into the individual 200m as world champion but agonisingly missed out on a medal in fourth.
He said: "I think for me the first couple of days weren't great. But you move on and every time I've raced this week I've got faster and faster.
"Four years ago, if someone had said to me you're going to get a silver medal at the Olympic Games, a fourth and a sixth (in the 400m) and you're going to swim okay, I would have taken it, so I'm pretty happy with tonight's performance.
"I knew if I was going in and I had guys beside me, there was no way in hell I'm letting them go past. There was no kind of panic in there, I just stuck to my race plan and it paid off."
Britain could have another medal to cheer on Wednesday after Andrew Willis qualified second fastest for the men's 200m breaststroke final.
The 25-year-old clocked 2:07.73, a personal best and narrowly outside Ross Murdoch's British record of 2:07.30. Only Ippei Watanabe of Japan, who set an Olympic record of 2:07.22, was quicker.
Willis, who finished eighth in the same event in London, said: "I was surprised that was that quick but I wasn't surprised I PB'd because I've put my heart and soul into this year.
"I'm not taking anything for granted. I've been in this position six times now and come up short.
"I'm definitely capable. I just need to go back, rest up and get my head in the right frame of mind because it will come down to that one race and whether I can repeat that performance physically and mentally."
A busy evening for 19-year-old Scott began with him qualifying for the final of the 100m freestyle in seventh place, clocking 48.20, 0.18 seconds shy of the British record he set in the heats on Tuesday afternoon.
But there was also medal success for Siobhan-Marie O'Connor - who also won silver last night.
O'Connor closed down on Hungary's Katinka Hosszu, who claimed a third gold of the Games, on the final length.
Hosszu was under world record pace for much of the race and finished in two minutes 06.58 seconds, an Olympic record, while O'Connor smashed the British record with a time of 2mins 06.88secs.
The 20-year-old from Bath said: "I was pretty nervous in the call room and knew I had to try to stick to how I swim the race best.
"In the past I've gone out too hard and tried to really sit with Katinka and haven't had a finish. When I turned on the breaststroke, I was surprised I was quite close.
"When I looked around and saw the time I was over the moon because I didn't think I had that time in me. I'm really pleased to push her as hard as I could."
O'Connor's achievement is all the more impressive considering she was diagnosed with the debilitating colon condition ulcerative colitis after London 2012, where she made her Olympic debut aged only 16.
"It was an amazing feeling," said O'Connor, whose parents Sean and Lindsey and younger brother Ciaran were in the stands.
"I've probably had my most consistent block of work ever leading up to this so I was really confident coming in as sometimes I can have disruptions.
"I felt in a really good place. My team have been amazing at keeping me fit and healthy in training. It was brilliant and I'm over the moon with that result."
The relay team are world champions and qualified fastest for the final but beating an American quartet containing Michael Phelps always looked an unlikely task.
So it proved, with the most successful Olympian of all time taking his tally to 21 gold medals and 25 in total with a second title of the night.