Jazz Carlin's exploits at the British Swimming Championships in Glasgow last weekend might make her a strong favourite for Commonwealth Games gold back in the same city in July, but it is hardly surprising to find the Welsh 23-year-old playing down her chances.

Carlin successfully defended her national 800m freestyle title and broke her own Welsh record with a time of eight minutes, 18.36 seconds which bodes well for her chances against a tougher level of competition in three months' time.

But Carlin would be the first to acknowledge there are no guarantees in her sport having missed out on a world medal by an agonising 14 hundredths of a second in Barcelona last year, having already suffered the pain of sitting out the London Olympics due to glandular fever.

Carlin said: "I'm just making sure I do everything I can so that in July when I get on those blocks I will know I've done everything and I'm in the best shape.

"Obviously at the Commonwealths there's going to be a lot of girls pushing your time so I just need to get ready for that race and get more experience going into those Games."

Carlin made her Commonwealth Games debut in Delhi four years ago where she claimed a silver medal in the 200m freestyle behind Australia's Kylie Palmer, and four days later also took a 400m bronze behind Palmer and gold medal-winning team-mate Rebecca Adlington.

Carlin did not compete in the 800m final, but it is a mark of her continued development that her latest Welsh record time is more than six seconds faster than the winning time in Delhi, also posted by Adlington.

And now Carlin has longer-term hopes of pushing towards the current 800m world record time of 8.13.86 set by American Katie Ledecky in the final of the Barcelona World Championships last year.

Carlin added on British Swimming's official website: "I think the aim is to keep going faster. I reached 8.18 last year and was obviously happy with that but I want to be pushing on towards the top of the world.

"The 8.13 won the World Championships last year so that's what I'm aiming for - just to keep going faster and faster.