In the end it came down to just one per cent - the difference between Olympic medal glory and fourth-placed anonymity for Southampton diver Peter Waterfield and his synchro partner Leon Taylor.
In 10-metre synchronised diving, that's a little extra splash, or a fractional difference in timing. But it's enough.
The British pair knew they needed something special for a medal - and they weren't afraid to try it: their final dive had a highest 'degree of difficulty' score attempted by anyone. It pulled them up to fourth, but their final score of 338.80 was just over three points behind the bronze-winning Germans.
It was good enough for ex-GB star Chris Snode to declare Britain "back in top-flight diving", but not to win a first Olympic medal since 1960. China, the favourites, were beaten to gold by the Russian pair.
Waterfield and Taylor had left themselves too much to do after a disappointing first dive. They were, said Snode, "consistent, but they never really nailed one dive."
But, as Taylor said: "We'll be back in four years - and we'll see what we do then".
The Isle of Wight's Darren Mew and Hampshire's Katy Sexton helped Britain's medley teams to new national records as the Olympic swimming concluded.
But as the 15th world record fell, British best still wasn't enough to win a medal in the pool.
Mew, the Isle of Wight breaststroker, who was 14th in the solo event, clocked "My best-ever split by a long way" (61.1) in the new GB record of 3.39.60 in the heat.
But the British team couldn't quite match that in the final - finishing eighth in 3.40.19, still inside the old GB record.
The USA won in a world-best 3.33.73.
Portsmouth backstroker Sexton and the GB women matched the men with a national record 4.07.52 heat.
They swam within 0.1 sec of that in the final, but finished seventh.
The USA took gold and another world record - 3.58.30.
GB star Jamie Hickman summed up the men's medley final - and Britain's whole week in the pool.
"It wasn't good enough, the whole team wasn't good enough - but we are getting there, we are improving," he said.
Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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