We told you
Magazine shoot star Jazz swims to silver medal
SHE is the swimmer who has captured the nation’s hearts with her effervescent charm and steely determination.
After winning a silver medal at the start of the week, 25-year-old Jazz Carlin did it again yesterday, summoning all her reserves of strength to become Britain’s first double medallist at the Rio Olympics.
If her first silver was ‘beyond expectations’, winning a second just a few days later felt, she says, ‘a bit surreal’.
But her family, coaches and ‘mentor’ Rebecca Adlington – a double Olympic gold winner – never doubted her for a minute. And neither did The Mail on Sunday.
As we predicted in our exclusive You magazine photoshoot with Jazz last month, she added an 800 metre freestyle silver to her 400 metre freestyle medal after being beaten again by record-breaking American Katie Ledecky. ‘I finally started believing in myself,’ said Jazz afterwards. ‘I have been working with a sports psychologist on that side of things. To come away with silver is an incredible feeling. I’m so grateful to everyone at home who got up to watch us at ridiculous hours of the morning.
‘If someone had told me four years ago that I would be standing on a podium twice with two silver medals I would have said there is no way.
‘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.
‘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.’
Five years ago she was diagnosed with glandular fever and tonsillitis, leaving her unable to compete at London 2012.