Braveheart Anna Meares saved Australia from a rare medal wipeout at the Beijing Games today.
Meares won the country's only medal of the day - and the first of the cycling program - when she took silver in the women's sprint.
Australia suffered a series of near-misses in an array of sports before Meares came to the rescue at the Laoshan velodrome.
To say she overcame adversity on her way to the Olympic podium is to putting it mildly.
Seven months ago Meares lay in hospital with a broken back after a horrific race crash that almost cost her the use of her legs.
The 24-year-old, who won the bronze medal in this event and gold in the time trial at the Athens Games four years ago, fought her way into the final in dramatic fashion.
Meares was in tears as she spoke after the final.
"I couldn't tell you what that means to me, for all I care that silver medal could be gold," she said.
"It's definitely been a tough one (the lead-up to the Games), one of many ups and downs.
"Falling seven months out from the Olympic Games and fracturing your C2 vertabra and pretty-much all your Olympic dreams go out the window.
"There was an up-and-down journey of even qualifying for the Olympics.
"Then trying to even be fit and prove to the selectors that I was going to be fit, I've probably spent more nervous energy in the past seven months than I have in my entire lifetime.
"But two weeks after my crash, all I wanted to do was get back on my bike and from that stage I really believed that I was worth the effort to put 'em in and try to get here.
"I'm really proud of that silver."
She came back from losing the first heat in the best-of-three semi-final against China's Guo Shuang to send the race into a decider.
Guo fell onto the track, ripping a hole in her skinsuit in a dramatic final heat.
In the re-start the pair jostled as they were coming into the last lap, with Meares almost coming off her bike when the riders clashed near the inside of the track.
Guo got there by a couple of centimetres, but Meares was later awarded the race on protest, the judges ruling that Guo had crossed into the sprinter's lane.
In the final, however, Meares had no answer to the power of British world champion Victoria Pendleton, who powered to the gold medal 2-0.
Meanwhile, Ryan Bayley failed to recapture the form that won him two gold medals in Athens four years ago, finishing 11th in the men's sprint.
Meares saved Australia from a barren cycling campaign, a fall indeed from the six gold medals in Athens.
Australia is clinging to its top-five position in the overall medal table, but the momentum has stalled after two sailing gold and Emma Snowsill's triathlon victory on Monday propelled Australia to its equal best day at an Olympics.
Apart from Meares, the pickings were lean on the 13th day of competition, and her efforts prevented a repeat of Australia's first-day woes in Beijing when no medals were won.
The triathlon men were unable to emulate Snowsill and bronze medallist Emma Moffatt. Courtney Atkinson finished 11th and Brad Kahlefeldt 16th, exposing a lack of depth among the men.
There were some agonising near-misses.
The Stingers dropped out of gold medal contention in the women's water polo after going down 9-8 to a last-minute goal from arch rivals and world champions USA.
They now face a bronze medal play-off on Thursday.
In sailing, Sarah Blanck was just edged out of a bronze medal in the solo dinghy class. It was a case of history repeating, as she missed bronze by a single point in Athens in the now-defunct Europe class.
Australia remains stranded on 11 gold medals, with Great Britain powering away in the Ashes battle that has become one of the talking points of the Games.
