JAZZ Carlin will start her bid to claim her second medal of the Rio Olympics later today.

The 25-year-old stunned many when she put in the performance of her life in the 400m freestyle in the early hours of Monday morning to claim a silver medal, knocking more than two seconds off her personal best time in the process.

Swindon's Carlin, who now lives in Bradford on Avon, will now head into the 800m heats, going in heat four at 6.02pm (BST), as the third quickest qualifier with a time of eight minutes 18.15 seconds at the British Championships in Glasgow earlier this year.

However, Carlin knows she has more in the tank having set a personal best time of 8:15.54 on her way to claiming gold at the European Championships two years ago.

That time is less than two seconds off of Rebecca Adlington’s Olympic record and while Katie Ledecky, who is the world record holder with a time of 8:06.68, is favourite to claim her third gold of the Games, the British record holder believes that Carlin would have taken a huge amount of confidence from her 400m swim.

“She came out there and swam her own race next to (Ledecky) who is miles ahead, breaking that world record,” said Adlington.

“She did it brilliantly. It was so controlled, she looked so smooth and effortless and it was a huge PB for her.”

Mum Mary said that the signs were there in the build up to Brazil that Jazz was in a good frame of mind but knows that qualifying for the final of the 800m won’t be a walk in the park for the Tigersharks swimmer.

“After the (400m) heat swim I was definitely confident that she would be in the mix and in the 800 there is still a big field of athletes and it could go any way,” she told the Advertiser.

“Yes it has predominantly been her strongest event and it is going to be exciting to see if she can make her second final of the Games.

“Hopefully she will be more relaxed, the pressure is off in some respect because she has got a medal already.”

Follow news of Jazz’s 800m freestyle progress at here tonight