Inside the mind of a Rio Olympics hero by Scholar and GB swimmer Siobhan-Marie O'Connor

Many stars are blessed with great talent, but if they don't have the right mindset they will choke on the big stage.

At the Rio Olympics, swimmer Siobhan-Marie O'Connor was riddled with anxiety for the biggest race of her career. The world was watching. Even her grandparents, 6,000 miles away, were up at 3am glued to the TV.

The 20-year-old Sky Academy Sports Scholar from Bath could easily have crumbled.

It was the 200m individual medley final and she was facing her Hungarian arch-rival Katinka Hosszu. Here's what happened in Siobhan's own words.....

I was thinking a medal was possible but before the final I was so nervous. I couldn't eat anything for two days. The day of the final was the same. It was completely nerves. My tummy was tight and it was a very weird feeling.

I had been nervous before but not this bad. I knew how hard I had worked over four years building up to Rio and I knew this was my opportunity.

Nerves can be detrimental but I tried to use the excitement to my advantage and it felt good. I had tried to feel relaxed and happy in the holding camp in the build-up to Rio by spending time with my team and friends. I was determined to make it a happy environment.

All of us in Team GB knew how important it was but I knew if I thought about it every day and locked myself away in my room I wouldn't enjoy it and I'd get caught up in all the emotions. I wouldn't have been in such a good place.

So I just focused on each day. I didn't think about each race until the actual day. That really helped me. It sounds simple but some people get caught up with what it means and they don't enjoy it. It was important to enjoy it.

I was in the call room and I remember being so sweaty in my hat. We have heated garments running on batteries that work brilliantly. Swimming is catching up with other sports with the science and so we wear them to keep our muscles warm.

You swim slower if you're cold when you dive in. I was so warm before the final and I was sweating so much that my goggles and hat kept falling off.

I tried so hard to keep calm and I actually found it quite funny. I was still ridiculously nervous, but tried to focus on the processes and not the end of the race - what to do when I dive in, how many kicks, how many strokes.

The beep went and we were off. The race is usually a blur for me and you go into autopilot. The last 50m was the fastest I had ever swam. I gave it everything.

I've raced Katinka Hosszu so many times, I knew she'd be out in front. I had caught up with her a lot in the last 25m and I was really digging deep. It was hurting. I didn't realise I was so close until I watched it back later.

I had my head down for the last few strokes and I took a big breath and that's the part I remember most. I knew I was close to her, but had no idea what time I was on for. And it was over! 

Going into the competition she was two seconds quicker which is a body length and a half better than mine. To get that close to her was great.

My lactate was the highest I had ever had. The hardest swim was the heat which was two seconds slower. It's strange how your body perceives the races.

It was such a dream race. I worked so hard to get a time of 2 minutes 7 seconds and to surpass that was amazing. My final time was 2 mins 6.88 secs which was only 0.3s behind Hosszu. 

I was a little disappointed not to get gold being so close, but you can't think like that. There was nothing more I could have done. I was delighted with silver.

After the race it didn't take that long to get to mum, dad and my brother. About 45 minutes I think. I got out of the pool, had my medal presentation, saw them in the crowd from afar, and had our press conference.

That was surreal because I'd never done one before. Then my family was brought down to me by the media and I met them downstairs.

They were the first people I wanted to see. It was all very emotional because we had all been so nervous. They were over the moon and made it all worth it.