Representing Great Britain in the Paralympics is nothing new to the Market Deeping swimming sensation who won a gold and silver medal in Athens four years ago.

Welbourn was the anchor man of the 4x100m freestyle relay squad that made history in the Greek capital by becoming the first quartet to break the magical four-minute barrier.

And he followed that golden performance by taking second spot in his specialist event - the S10 400m freestyle - behind big rival Benoit Huot of Canada.

But then it becomes a blur. Welbourn's memory of the two medal ceremonies is minimal and he hopes to have another chance to sample the glory of climbing onto a Paraylmpic podium again in a few days time.

He said: "Nothing compares to an Olympics or a Paralympics and you don't really appreciate the scale of it until you are there.

"It is wonderful just to be part of such a great sporting event and hopefully having been there in 2004 will be a big benefit to me this time around.

"Winning medals at the Paralympics was without doubt the best experience of my life - but I can't really remember too much about getting the medals at all.

"I'm putting it down to being so high on adrenaline at the time, so I definitely want to win a few more and hopefully these memories will stay with me!"

Since Athens, Welbourn has claimed identical first and second finishes at the 2006 World Championships in South Africa.

Two years on the 21 year-old will be tackling both those events again in Beijing as well as contesting the 100m butterly, 100m freestyle and the 200m individual medley in his S10 category.

The relay squad stand a great chance of a medal again while Welbourn is also keen to go one better than four years ago in his strongest suit - the long-distance freestyle.

"The Australians and Chinese have both gone faster than us this year in the relay," added Welbourn. "But we are still right up. We are the defending champions and we are not going to give up our title without a fight.