“I THINK I was really close to walking away from the sport but in the back of my mind, I always thought there was still more to give.”

That is how low swimmer Jazz Carlin felt when she finally realised that her dream of competing at a home Olympic Games in 2012 was never going to become a reality.

The 24-year-old was still visibly emotional as she recalled the moment when what she had worked for since the age of six had come crashing down around her.

Sat in the entrance to the Milton Road Baths, where she used to turn up in a ‘Princess Jasmine’ costume to have fun with her friends, Carlin explained how contracting glandular fever in 2011 had left her too weak to compete.

Every time she tried to compete, her body would just break down.

Until that moment, the Swindon-born swimmer was on track to book her place in London, having won bronze in the 400m freestyle and silver in the 200m freestyle the year before at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

“I think, looking back now, I realised how badly it had affected me,” she said.

“You try and get on with it but I just couldn’t get consistent training in and every time I tried to push my body that little bit harder, it just took me a few steps back.

“Part of me, deep down, just didn’t want to give up or give in -but it was out of my control.

“I felt a bit numb when I realised I was not going to compete at London.

“I was upset and I cried but it still hadn’t really sunk in. It only sunk in when I watched it and I was like ‘I missed out on this’.

“I went to watch one of the swimming sessions and helped BBC Wales Sport with the radio, so I got to experience the village a little bit but it was completely different.

“It was horrible. But then I think it made me think I could still be competing with the best in the world. I just needed to be ready to do it and not be ill and unable to train properly.

“I took a few months out, had my tonsils removed, and then I got back in to training, but I didn’t have that many expectations because my confidence was massively knocked.

“I had my family and friends, and you do realise who is close to you, because they are the ones that are by your side and picking you up.

“My dad can make me laugh every day ,whether it is a bad day or a good day.”

It was dad Roger who got Carlin into swimming when he would take her along to the Link Centre as a baby to get her used to the water.

As she grew up, she found she loved it, despite mum Mary not being able to enjoy the experience with her.

“My mum actually can’t swim,” she revealed, laughing.

“I started to grow up and I just used to have fun and go every week.

“I joined the (Swindon) Tigersharks (club) when I was five, so I was quite young but I was just getting the basics and then building up really.

“When you join the club with so many other people your age, you build really good social skills.

“You are there, you’re doing it together and you are having fun.

“I used to love going to training at that age. I still do sometimes.

“I just progressed through the squads really and then, at 11, I made my first British Nationals. I wasn’t very good when I got there. I think I came 25th, nowhere near the medals, but that made me strive to be better for the next year.

“I swam well for me but compared to the rest of the girls in the age group, I was so far behind.

“That gave me the motivation for next year because I wanted to do better and I went back when I was 12. I still didn’t get a medal but I think I made the final, so I was improving.

“At 13, I was back and got a silver medal, so I improved each year.

“Then I went to nationals at 14 and came away with two gold medals, so each year I was continuing to try and improve myself.”

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Jazz Carlin shows off her two European Gold medals, a silver and bronze from the Commonwealth Games and her Short Course Gold

As for any young athlete, juggling her training with her school work was always tough and looking back, Carlin finds it hard to imagine where she used to muster the energy from.

She applied the same mentality from her swimming training to her school work and believes it has made her stronger now as a result.

“I don’t think you really realise, at that age, what you can do with the sport. I just loved racing and really enjoyed it, and it didn’t take a massive priority at that stage,” she added.

“School was a big thing and I wanted to do well at school. In the mornings, I would be training at 5am and then having my breakfast in the car and going straight to school.

“Looking back, it was just normal and it was fine. It is only when you look back now, you wonder how you did it.

“I think there was one day at school where I trained in the morning, had two hours of swimming at school, and then I trained in the afternoon as well.

“I think I applied the same sort of thing in school as I did in swimming - I was always trying to do better.

“I think you always want to get the best out of yourself.”

Carlin made the tough decision to move to Swansea when she was 16 because at Tigersharks, the amount of hours they could give her each week were not enough.

She was being told by British Swimming that she needed to be doing more training and, as Carlin was going into the senior ranks, they wanted their swimmers to be building up their hours in the pool.

“It was a hard decision to move away from home and away from my family but if you don’t try, you never know,” she said.

“I moved to Swansea at 16 with my coach and built it up to 22 hours a week, which was quite a big step. But I adapted really well and I started to make quite big improvements.

“In the next few years, I made the senior teams and started to win medal, so I definitely think changing the programme paid off.”

Carlin made her first senior team in 2009 at the World Championships in Rome, coming away with a bronze medal in the relay.

That was the first taste of real success the young swimmer had experienced but she wanted more.

The next year, she was at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and won two medals, including a silver in the 200m freestyle.

Everything seemed to be on track as she built up towards what was meant to be the pinnacle of her career, performing at her home Olympics in London.

Disaster struck though with the diagnosis of glandular fever.

She took a break from the sport and said she found it difficult to get back into the pool.

“I think having people around really boosted me u, but it had to be me that got back in the pool,” she admitted.

“Everyone could say to me ‘you’ve got more to give’ but I had to be the one to get back into the early mornings to do the training.

“It took a lot for me to get back in but once I did, I didn’t really have a lot of expectations to do anything special that year because I’d had three months out in the winter and, in swimming terms, that is quite a lot.

“I felt awful getting back in the pool and I felt so unfit, so it took me a couple of months to feel back to normal.”

“I just carried on training and shifted it to a lot more distance training, and I think that really helped me.

“I worked with my coach Bud (McAllister) to get the most out of me and every meet I was going to, I was seeing small improvements and ways to improve, and I was going faster than I had when I was healthy before.

“I went to the World Championships in Barcelona in 2013 and came fourth.

“So I was sort of hit with another disappointment but if you had told me that at the start of the year, then I would have taken it because it was a bonus to make the World Championships.

“Coming fourth is a disappointing place but it definitely pushed me on to try and do more.”

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This year, despite the departure of her coach McAllister to Australia in April, her training has become far more consistent and she has seen more improvements in her times.

She also headed down under for six weeks to get some one-on-one training with McAllister and, despite the exotic sound of the trip, it was a tough and cold experience for Carlin.

It paid off at this summer’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow when the 24-year-old was able to make amends for the heartbreak of 2012, as she swam to gold in the 800m freestyle to add to the silver she had won in the 400m freestyle - a memory that brought a big smile to her face.

“I needed to believe that I could still do it and still win medals because my confidence was so knocked after 2012,” she said.

“I was considering leaving the sport but the Commonwealth Games reassured me that I can still do it and produce when I get to the big competitions.

“I couldn’t stop on a low - I wanted to give more to the sport.

“I do love swimming but, at times, it is emotionally draining and it takes a lot out of you. When you are not performing well, you always think ‘why am I doing this?’ and ‘why do I put myself through all of this upset?’

“I know my sporting career won’t last forever and I want to look back and say I really gave it my everything and did the best I could.’’ Having achieved many of her goals this year, Carlin now has her sights firmly set on the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in less than two years.

Despite her World Championship Short Course success earlier this month, claiming silver in the 800m freestyle in Doha, she is not taking her place in the British Swimming squad for granted.

“Rio is not far away now and I can’t believe how quickly time is going,” she added.

“With missing out on London, I don’t want to take that for granted and the selection process is going to be quite tough.

“Even though it was tough at the time (missing out on the London Olympics), it has definitely made me stronger and more determined over the next couple of years.

“You sort of build your successes or failures. Sometimes it doesn’t always go your way but it makes you that little bit more motivated. When you are hurting in training, you have that at the back of your mind.

“I think that will always be with me but it made me stronger and I know I can deal with it.

“I don’t want it to happen again, sat on the sidelines watching an Olympic Games.

“It (swimming) is quite an individual sport and it is lonely at times but the benefits you can get from swimming are amazing and it really does build you as a person and also as an athlete when you get older.

“I really couldn’t have imagined the success and obviously a lot of my dreams have come true but I have still got a few more to go.”