Jazz Silver Double Makes Her Welsh History-maker

Jazz Carlin became the first British athlete to win two medals at Rio 2016 as her 800m freestyle silver helped Great Britain equal their best Olympic Games medal haul in the swimming pool since Los Angeles 1984.

The Welsh swimmer also became the first Welsh sports star to win two Olympic medals at the same Games for 44 years.

Carlin, who was born in Swindon but represents Wales after relocating to Swansea, entered the 800m freestyle final ranked third from the heats.

She was neck and neck with Hungary’s reigning European champion Boglarka Kapas, but gave it everything down the final 100m to take the silver.

Gold went to USA’s teenage superstar Katie Ledecky in a new world record time of 8:04.79 with Carlin 11.38 seconds behind on 8:16.17 and Kapas on 8:16.37.

The double Olympic silver medallist 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 the all of the support staff around me have believed in me.

“Obviously, it’s been a tough week and I’ve been feeling a bit ropey the last couple of days but it was my last swim at the Olympics and I wanted to go out and do the best job I could do.

“To get my hand on the wall second in a solid time, I’m really happy. If someone had told me four years ago you’d have been stood on the podium twice with two silver medals I’d have said there’s no way.

“I feel very lucky to have gotten on the podium again. When you are racing an 800m and there is someone that far ahead swimming an incredible race, you focus on yourself.

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

“I have got great goggles so I could see around me. The 800m is a tactical race, you have got to be aware of everyone in the pool who could make their move at any time. It was great to be part of such an incredible race.

“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 definitely hasn’t sunk in, it feels a bit surreal.”

Carlin is just the second post-war Welsh athlete to win two medals at one Olympic Games – alongside double equestrian champion Richard Meade at Munich in 1972.