The 2012 Summer Olympics began with Cochrane competing on the first day of competition in the 400-metre freestyle. There Cochrane won his heat and qualified in the last spot for the final. However, after Park Tae-hwan's disqualification was overturned, Cochrane was pushed out of the final and missed swimming in it by 1/100th of a second. He next entered his signature event the 1500-metre where he qualified through the heats in third place. In the final Cochrane managed to outswim Oussama Mellouli for the silver medal and achieved it in a personal best time. With his second medal at his second consecutive Olympics, according to media such as the CBC this cemented Cochrane as Canada's pillar athlete to build its swimming team around for the future as he declared that he would try and swim for Canada at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.