Rebecca Adlington

    (£6,000 - £8,000)

... Return to previous page

Biography

Rebecca Adlington won two gold medals at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in the 400 m and 800 m, breaking the 19 year-old world record of Janet Evans in the 800 m final.

Adlington is Britain's first Olympic swimming champion since 1988, the first British swimmer to win two Olympic gold medals since 1908 and is Great Britain's most successful Olympic swimmer in 100 years.

Born and educated in Mansfield, Adlington started swimming with Sherwood Colliery Swimming Club, and was later selected for the Nottinghamshire County Swim Squad (Nova Centurion).

In the Beijing heats of the 400 m freestyle, Rebecca broke the Commonwealth record. On 11 August 2008 she won an Olympic gold medal in the same event, beating Katie Hoff of the USA. Rebecca was the first woman to win swimming gold for Great Britain since Anita Lonsbrough in 1960, and is the first British swimmer to win more than one gold medal at a single Olympic Games since Henry Taylor won three in 1908.

Adlington set a new British, Commonwealth, European and Olympic record of 8:18.06 in the preliminary heats of the women's 800 metre freestyle on 14 August 2008. She went on to win the 800 m Olympic freestyle final on 16 August 2008 in a world record time of 8:14.10, her second gold of the tournament, a full six seconds ahead of the silver medalist, and two seconds ahead of the former world record which had been set by Janet Evans.

Rebecca has now commenced training for the 2009 world swimming championships in Rome. Rebecca is planning on competing at European championships, Commonwealth Games and world championships as part of her journey towards the defence of her Olympic titles in London in 2012.