Simmonds has gone from the hunter to the hunted
IT IS now eight years since a 13-year-old swimmer called Ellie Simmonds burst out of nowhere and into the limelight by winning two golds at the Beijing Paralympics.
Four years later and those teenage kicks won her another two gold medals at the London Games. Now 21, Simmonds is in Rio and getting ready for her third Paralympics. But the hunter has become the hunted. A new generation of teenagers is emerging to challenge her dominance in the freestyle and individual medley races.
‘It’s going to be the hardest one yet,’ she said. ‘There are some great young swimmers coming through and they’ll be right on my heels. There is the Australian Tiffany Thomas Kane, she is just 14. There is Yelyzaveta Mereshko from Ukraine and Ellie Robinson from Britain, who is 15. I’m a very competitive person and it keeps me on my toes.’
Thomas Kane, 13 at the time, beat Simmonds to gold in the 100m breaststroke at last year’s IPC Swimming World Championships, setting a world record in the process and won three other medals on her international debut.
Robinson broke her long-standing British 50m freestyle record this year and Mereshko, 24, set world records in the 50m and 100m freestyle races at the world championships last year.
Success has certainly opened doors for Simmonds. She became the youngest to be appointed an MBE after Beijing and was made OBE for services to Paralympic Sport in 2013. She overcame her fear of the open ocean to fulfil a lifetime ambition and swim with wild dolphins in an ITV programme shown last week.
And there is also a series of adverts with comedian and hapless swimmer Jack Whitehall for Samsung’s School of Rio campaign that are about to hit the airwaves. ‘It has transformed my life,’ she said of her fame. ‘It has opened up so many opportunities for me I never thought I’d have and I’ve enjoyed it so much.’