Ellie Simmonds came to national attention when she competed in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, winning two gold medals for Great Britain.
24 Facts About Ellie Simmonds
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Ellie Simmonds was the youngest member of the team, at the age of 13.
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Ellie Simmonds won another two golds in London, including setting a World Record in the 400m freestyle, and a further gold medal at the Rio Paralympics in 2016, this time setting a world record for the 200m medley.
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Ellie Simmonds completed her primary education at Cooper and Jordan CofE Primary before attending Aldridge School and later Olchfa School in Swansea.
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Ellie Simmonds, who has achondroplasia, became interested in swimming at the age of five.
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At the age of 13, Ellie Simmonds was the youngest British athlete at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, competing in the 50m, 100m and 400m freestyle, 50m butterfly, and 200m Individual Medley.
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Ellie Simmonds won gold medals in the 100m and 400m freestyle events.
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On 1 September 2012, Ellie Simmonds repeated her gold performance to win the 400m freestyle at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, in which she took five seconds off the World Record time.
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On 12 September 2016, at the Rio Paralympics, Ellie Simmonds defended her Gold medal for the 200m individual medley setting a new world record, the first below 3 minutes at 2:59.81 Ellie Simmonds won a bronze medal in the 400m freestyle at the 2016 Summer Paralympics.
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On 2 September 2021, Ellie Simmonds announced her Paralympic retirement after missing out on a medal in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
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On 7 August 2022, it was announced that Ellie Simmonds would be participating in the twentieth series of the BBC One show Strictly Come Dancing with her professional dance partner being Nikita Kuzmin.
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Ellie Simmonds was eliminated in Week 7 after losing the dance off to Molly Rainford and Carlos Gu.
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Ellie Simmonds won the 2008 BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year award.
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Ellie Simmonds was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 New Year Honours.
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Ellie Simmonds received the honour from Queen Elizabeth II on 18 February 2009.
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In 2011, Ellie Simmonds won the award for 'Best British Sporting Performance for an Athlete with Disability' at the Jaguar Academy of Sport Annual Awards.
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At the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London Ellie Simmonds won four medals, two golds, a silver and a bronze.
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Ellie Simmonds took gold in the S6 400m with a new world record; gold in the S6 200m again with a new world record; silver in the S6 100m and a bronze in the S6 50m.
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Ellie Simmonds was elevated to Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to Paralympic sport.
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Ellie Simmonds is very involved with charity work, with much of her focus being on sport, young people and water.
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Ellie Simmonds competed on TV show The Great Celebrity Bake-Off in series 2, episode 2.
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Ellie Simmonds is a patron of the Dwarf Sports Association UK, along with swimmer Matthew Whorwood.
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In January 2019, Ellie Simmonds was appointed to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee board.
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Ellie Simmonds is a Girlguiding leader in Manchester, where her pack name is Aqua Owl.