Noosa’s open water superfish, Kareena Lee, has become the first Australian to win a medal in Marathon Swimming at the Olympics.

Diving in for her Olympic debut at Odaiba Marine Park, the 27-year-old’s claimed bronze in a scorching time of 1:59:32.5.

Lee punched her ticket to Tokyo after placing seventh in the Women’s 10km event at the 2019 World Swimming Championships in South Korea.

As the first swimmer officially selected for the Australian Olympic Team in July 2019, it’s been a long wait for the 27-year-old to pull on the green and gold.

She finished just 1.7 seconds behind Brazil’s gold medal winner Ana Marcela Cunha and 0.9 seconds behind silver medallist Sharon van Rouwendaal from the Netherlands.

Before today, Melissa Gorman’s 10th place finish at London 2012 was the highest an Australian had achieved in Marathon Swimming at the Olympic Games.

Speaking post-race Lee was thrilled with her performance.

“I don’t even think I’ve really processed how it feels, it’s just incredible, it was the goal going in to come out with a medal and doing it at my first Olympics is just insane,” Lee said.