JAZZ Carlin is coming to terms with how far she has come in the last four years after becoming Swindon’s most-decorated Olympian.

The 25-year-old claimed her second silver medal of the Rio Olympics in the early hours of Saturday morning in the 800m freestyle.

Carlin, who now lives in Bradford on Avon, entered the final ranked third from the heats, having already claimed silver in the 400m freestyle, and endured a battle with Hungary’s reigning European champion Boglarka Kapas for silver.

Gold went to Katie Ledecky, her fourth of the Games, in a world record time of eight minutes 4.79 seconds, with Carlin 11.38 seconds behind and Kapas a further 0.20 adrift in third.

Carlin was considering stepping away from the sport having missed out on competing at her home Olympics in London due to a bout of glandular fever.

However, four years later and after more hours of training than she can care to remember, the Tigersharks swimmer became the first British athlete at Rio to claim two medals on Saturday and has put it down to those who picked her up from the lowest point in her career.

“If someone had told me four years ago that I would be stood on a podium twice with two silver medals, I would have said there is no way,” she said.

“It has taken a lot of time to get here and there have been times when I haven’t believed in myself but my family and all of the support staff around me have believed in me from the bottom.

“I feel very lucky to have gotten on the podium again.

“The rest of the field was full of Olympic medallists and world medallists, so it was a tough field as well as Katie being in the race.

“When you are racing an 800m and there is someone that far ahead swimming an incredible race, you focus on yourself.

“Since I was a young girl, it has been a dream to go to an Olympics and to finally be here is a dream come true but to be on the podium twice with two silver medals hasn’t sunk in. It feels a bit surreal.”