Smile, we’re home with the gold!
On top of the world: Members of Britain’s hockey team pose with their gold medals at Heathrow yesterday
THEY had lifted the nation’s spirits with their record-breaking exploits.
So it was fitting that Britain’s Olympians received a heartwarming heroes’ welcome yesterday on their homecoming from Rio.
They touched down at Heathrow on a gold-nosed British Airways jumbo jet to be greeted by crowds of fans and family, cheering and waving Union Jacks.
The 11-hour flight back from Team GB’s most successful Olympics was a patriotic affair, with athletes singing the national anthem.
Once the journey was underway, swimmer Adam Peaty, triathlon star Alistair Brownlee and the women’s hockey team gave up their places in first class that were reserved for gold medallists to sit together in economy, which became a party zone.
Hockey poster girl Sam Quek, 27, and team-mate Laura Unsworth, 28, borrowed stewardesses outfits from the crew and walked down the aisle serving champagne to fellow Olympians.
Miss Quek, from Wirral, Merseyside, said: ‘We gave up our first class seats … Adam and Alistair came and said, “Can we come and join in with you girls?”. We were going round serving everyone drinks.’ Peaty posed for a picture in the cockpit, wearing the pilot’s hat. While others danced and sipped champagne, Britain’s most decorated gymnast Max Whitlock was determined to prove his sporting prowess and performed part of his gold-medal winning routine, using the chairs in first class as a pommel horse.
As flight number BA2016 made its 6,000-mile journey home, the 320 passengers – athletes and support stuff – took selfies, quaffed 77 bottles of champagne and tucked into 898 meals. Once they had
‘Proud to be British’
landed at Heathrow, the athletes posed with the crew on the steps of the plane while a cargo including pole vaults, javelins, bicycles and a 22ft sail was unloaded from the hold along with their baggage.
They faced a struggle to identify their luggage as lines of identical Team GB-issue red bags filled the reclaim area.
Once into the arrivals hall, the sports stars were greeted by relatives who cried as they hugged their loved ones, many of whom had been away since before the start of the Games on August 5. Peaty, 21, said he was looking forward to some paintballing, racing his car around the tracks in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, and a ‘pretty mental’ night out with his friends in Stoke-on-Trent.
During a press conference which was briefly interrupted by his medals clinking against his water glass, causing Peaty to blush profusely and apologise, he admitted that he had ‘goose bumps’ whenever he thought about the victory.
The swimmer said he felt ‘proud to be British’ and later admitted that it would be a lifetime ambition to be awarded a knighthood.
‘That’s something I’ve always, always, looked up to I don’t think I deserve it, I think I’ve got a lot more to do. There’s a lot of people on that team who deserve it a lot more,’ he said.
‘I’m hugely patriotic, I love the Royal Family, I love every aspect of Britain and what we’ve achieved in history – that such a small country can pack a big punch. That’s exactly what we’ve proven