JAZZ Carlin claimed her second silver medal of the Olympic Games as she dug deep to back up her 400m medal with a second place finish in the 800m freestyle.

Having qualified third fastest for the final with a time of 8 minutes 19.67 seconds on Thursday afternoon, the Swindon swimmer, who now lives in Bradford on Avon, went in lane three of the final.

As in the heats, Carlin started well in the opening 100m as she turned in second, 1.91 seconds off the pace of Katie Ledecky but on the British record pace.

With a quarter of the race gone, Carlin had fallen almost another second behind Ledecky, the American having already established a 2.59 second advantage, however, the 25-year-old was extending the lead to Spanish Maria Blemonte Garcia in third place.

By the halfway turn, Hungarian swimmer Boglarka Kapas, who had beaten Carlin in every race this year, including the heats in Rio, had gone ahead of the Spanish swimmer as she closed the gap on Carlin in second.

With 200m to go Kapas had taken Carlin for second spot as the duo battled it out for the silver medal, with the Tigersharks swimmer 0.3 seconds behind.

However, with 100m to go, Carlin made her move and moved back into second spot at the final turn and touched home in a time of 8:16.17, 0.20 seconds ahead of Kapas.

Both were left in the wake of gold medallist Ledecky who smashed the world record with a blistering time of 8:04.79.