“I was really struggling to get food down, and was stressing about things like getting a medley relay slot instead of thinking about getting a medal tonight.
“My coach said to me I had nothing to lose but to just relax and enjoy it.”
Alongside fellow Scots Ciara Schlosshan and Lucy Grieve – who finished fifth and sixth respectively – MacInnes did just that.
Third at the turn, she overhauled South Africa’s Erin Gallagher as the noise grew louder to earn a spot on the second step of the podium. Australia’s Alex Perkins took gold.
“Oh, God, I’m just starting to get my breath back,” MacInnes said. “That was so incredible.
“I’m so grateful to the crowd for making it such a special memory for me. I’m so grateful to my parents and boyfriend who are up in the crowd and I’m so glad I was able to do it in front of them.
“A silver is crazy to me. Maybe I was thinking ‘bronze could be really cool’ so this is just so amazing.”
Duncan Scott knows all about Games medals, given he has 14 of them in the house.
Gold in Friday’s 200m individual medley was a fine start to proceedings, but a couple of relay near-misses over the weekend were followed by another fourth place in the 200m butterfly on Monday.