Ryan Elliott, Leigh Hoffman and Danny Barber have kicked off Australia's challenge at the world track cycling championships in Shanghai impressively with a silver medal in the men's team sprint.
The Commonwealth champions' bold gamble to upset the all-conquering Netherlands trio headed by all-time great Harrie Lavreysen saw them lead for two of the three laps in the final on Wednesday's opening day before the flying Dutchmen inevitably roared to their fourth-straight title.
"We were up to the 500-metre mark, so we definitely gave the Dutch a run for their money," reckoned Commonwealth sprint champ Hoffman.
"It's definitely bittersweet to miss out on the rainbow bands, but considering last year was a bronze and this year we have silver, I think this team is on the way up."
The Australian team's big day also featured victory in a first-round duel against a British team which had ditched former Aussie star Matt Richardson.
Richardson, the triple Olympic medallist who had jumped ship to compete for GB after the Paris Games, was withdrawn from the British squad earlier in the week while being investigated for alleged misconduct.
Elliott, Hoffman and Barber prevailed in the head-to-head with GB, clocking 42.346 seconds to the 42.716 of Edward Lowe, Joseph Truman and Harry Ledingham-Horn.
The Britons were clearly outgunned in the absence of Richardson, the fastest man ever over a flying lap.
As second fastest qualifiers, the Aussies went straight through to the final against the Dutch superstar trio of Roy van den Berg, Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland, the Olympic champs who'd won the three previous world titles and five of the last six.
"For the final, we made a minor change in strategy. Just tried to have a little gamble and it almost paid off," explained Hoffman.
Indeed, all looked promising after Elliott had blasted off, taking the trio into an early lead, but the sheer power of Lavreysen helped pull the two teams back virtually neck-and-neck going into the last 250m circuit.
That's when one of Hoogland's famed late pushes ensured the Dutch eventually prevailed by over half-a-second, clocking 41.954 to Australia's 42.470.
Astonishingly, it was the 10th time in a row that Lavreysen had medalled in the world championship men's team sprint, featuring eight golds and two silvers, and it was the five-time Olympic champ's 21st track world title in total.
Hoffman, though, reckoned the Australians could be proud of medalling in the event for a fifth-straight world championships.
Earlier at the Shanghai Chongming Velodrome, another flying Dutch star Lorena Wiebes prevailed in the women's scratch race for her fourth world track gold, with Australian Maeve Plouffe finishing 14th.
The Australian women's sprint trio of Kristina Clonan, Alessia McCaig and Molly McGill were defeated in their first-round contest by a Russian team competing under a neutral flag, and went on to be classified seventh overall.
China went on to defeat a British trio, which featured Richardson's girlfriend Emma Finucane, in the final.
The men's team pursuit quartet of Conor Leahy, James Moriarty, Blake Agnoletto and Thomas Cornish narrowly missed qualifying for the bronze medal final and had to settle for fifth overall.
But the women's team pursuit outfit of Claudia Marcks, Alyssa Polites, Sophie Edwards and Felicity Wilson-Haffenden are still in with a medal shout after qualifying fifth fastest earlier in the day.
