The Hartlepool swimmer was part of the women's 4x100m medley team who were narrowly edged out of the medals in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The quartet of Gemma Spofforth, Kate Haywood, Lowe and Fran Halsall broke the European record for the second time in two days, finishing in three minutes 57.50 seconds.

But that was not good enough to pip third place China who finished just 1.39 seconds ahead of the British quartet to take the bronze medal.

Lowe, who finished sixth in the final of the 100m and was knocked out in the semi-final of the 200m, said her Olympic debut had been a terrific learning curve and she was now setting her sights on London 2012.

The 18-year-old said: ""I'm trying not to be upset. It's been a great experience being here.

"In the next four years this relay team is going to be phenomenal, and next time we'll get them.

"We are disappointed but there is nothing we can do about it now, we can't control the other teams, we just had to give it our all which is what we did."

Australia took the gold with a world record of three minutes 52.69 seconds, beating their own world record by 3.05 seconds.

The Aussie quartet of Emily Seebohm, Leisel Jones, Jessicah Schipper and Libby Trickett wiped 3.05 seconds off their 2007 record.

The United States finished second to give Natalie Coughlin her sixth medal of the Games and 41-year-old Dara Torres her third silver in China.

Gemma Spofforth gave the British team a solid start, touching in second place but Kate Haywood struggled to live with the pace set by 100m breaststroke gold medal winner Jones as the Australians pulled away.

Fran Halsall tried to close the gap on the final leg but couldn't catch the Chinese.

Spofforth admitted: "Fourth in the Olympic Games is just not good enough. Fourth is not the place to come. My time would have got me a medal in the individual and I'm gutted I didn't do it."