Team GB heroes up for New Year honours
Winning athletes in line for gongs include Jason and Laura Kenny with Knight-dame double
Team GB’S Olympic athletes will be recognised with a raft of gongs in the New Year’s honours list, with cyclists Jason and Laura Kenny set for the husband and wife sporting feat of becoming a Knight and a Dame. The Queen was among those to send her congratulations yesterday, hailing the team as “an inspiration to us all”. Gymnast Max Whitlock, sailor Hannah Mills and swimmers Adam Peaty and Duncan Scott are in line for OBES or CBES after striking gold in Tokyo.
TEAM GB’S Olympic heroes will be recognised with a raft of gongs in the New Year’s honours list, with cyclists Jason and Laura Kenny set for the unprecedented husband and wife sporting feat of becoming a Knight and a Dame.
The Kennys have become the most successful male and female athletes in British Olympic history after sharing another four medals in Japan, with Jason now clear of sporting knights Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins, Mo Farah, Ben Ainslie and Steve Redgrave by winning nine medals, including seven gold.
Laura also now stands alone as Britain’s most successful female Olympian. Kenny is level with equestrian great Charlotte Dujardin on six medals but has five golds to her three.
Kenny, though, has five golds to Dujardan’s three who, having already been awarded a CBE in 2017, is herself under serious consideration to become a Dame following two bronzes in Tokyo.
Although marital couples have previously both been awarded a knighthood and damehood, including Sir John Major and Dame Norma Major, it has never simultaneously happened to a sporting duo.
It would leave Laura with the unusual choice of being known as a Dame, the honour she herself had been awarded, or a Lady, the courtesy title for the wives of those who have been given a knighthood. Jason will face no such conundrum, as the husbands of Dames do not get a courtesy title.
The Queen was among those to send her congratulations yesterday, hailing the athletes as “an inspiration to us all”.
Gymnast Max Whitlock, sailor Hannah Mills and swimmers Adam
Peaty and Duncan Scott are also in line for OBES or even CBES after striking gold in Tokyo, but also further establishing themselves as multiple Olympic medallists and creating various historic records.
Whitlock now joins an elite list of British Olympians with six medals, Peaty is the first swimmer to defend an Olympic title, Scott is the most decorated Briton at any one games and Mills is the most successful woman in Olympic sailing history.
Past precedent also means MBES for Team GB’S other gold medallists, including Tom Daley and Jonny Brownlee, who were celebrated past medallists but had never previously been awarded an honour.
The Honours and Appointments Secretariat in the Cabinet Office coordinates nominations before a committee then makes recommendations to the Prime Minister and the Queen.
The Government is determined to celebrate Team GB’S remarkable haul of 65 medals, which matches the tally of the home London Olympics and was achieved with one of the youngest teams in recent memory.
Mark England, Team GB’S chef de mission, called it the “miracle of Tokyo”, with Britain only behind the United States, China and the Russian Olympic Committee on total medals won and behind only the United States, China and Japan in terms of its 22 golds.
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said the performances had “shown us the very best of this country – demonstrating our sportsmanship, hard work and determination”.
Yesterday the Queen said: “I send my warmest congratulations to the competitors from Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and across the Commonwealth, following their success at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in recent weeks.
“The skill, determination and hard work shown by the athletes and their support teams throughout the unique and challenging circumstances of the last year has been an inspiration to us all.
“I extend my very best wishes to everyone who has played a part in this extraordinary achievement.”
The Government also wants to use the Olympic stars to help drive a campaign to get children participating in sport and raise awareness of the chief medical officer’s recommendation of at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day.
“We’ve seen how effective the five-aday (fruit and vegetable) campaign was – and sports personalities have always been fantastic at saying, ‘how can I help?’, and I think we need to take on that offer a bit more aggressively,” said Nigel Huddleston, the sports minister.