Cooke found the standard much higher in China

She finished in a time of eight minutes and 20.2 seconds behind Russian winner Anastasia Ivanenko (8:11.99) and US swimmer Kate Ziegler (8:14.12).

Cooke recently retained her title over the same distance at the Commonwealths and also won 400m freestyle silver.

Her swim to clinch bronze in China was over nine seconds faster than her effort to take 800m gold in Australia.

In other events, Australia's Matthew Welsh took gold in the 100m backstroke, edging out Austria's Markus Rogan. American Randall Bal and Helge Meeuw of Germany tied for third.

Oleg Lisogor of Ukraine took first in the 100m breaststroke, with Brenton Rickard of Australia second and Norway's Alexander Dale Oen collecting bronze.

Brazil's Kaio Almeida was first in the 100m butterfly, followed by 19-year-old Venezualan Albert Subirats in his first international appearance, and Jayme Cramer of US.

Italy won the 800m freestyle medley ahead of Australia and the United States to rack up their seventh medal of the meet.

Ryan Lochte of the US took first in the 400 individual medley, followed by Luca Marin of Italy and Igor Berezutskiy of Russia.

In the women's competition, Jade Edminstone won the 50m breastroke in 30.22 seconds, followed by Brooke Hanson to make it an Australian one-two. American Jessica Hardy took bronze.

In the 100m backstroke, Janine Pietsch notched a winning time of 58.02, followed by another Australian, Tayliah Zimmer. China's Gao Chang took bronze.