| Ellie Simmonds | |
| Honorific Suffix: | OBE |
| Full Name: | Eleanor May Simmonds |
| Sport: | Para swimming |
| Event: | freestyle, individual medley, breaststroke |
| Disability: | Achondroplasia |
| Disability Class: | S6, SM6, SB6 |
| Nickname: | Ellie |
| Nationality: | British |
| Club: | Camden Swiss Cottage Swimming Club, London |
| Coach: | Steve Bayley |
| Birth Date: | 11 November 1994 |
| Birth Place: | Glossop, Derbyshire, England[1] |
Eleanor May Simmonds, OBE (born 11 November 1994) is a British former Paralympian swimmer who competed in S6 events. She came to national attention when she competed in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, winning two gold medals for Great Britain. She was the youngest member of the team, at the age of 13.
In 2012, she was again selected for the Great Britain squad, this time swimming at a home games in London. She 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.
Simmonds was born in Derbyshire, and is an adoptee. She grew up in Aldridge, a part of the Metropolitan Walsall Borough, and completed her primary education at Cooper and Jordan CofE Primary[2] before attending Aldridge School and later Olchfa School in Swansea.[3]
Simmonds, who has achondroplasia, became interested in swimming at the age of five.[4] She swam for Boldmere Swimming Club in Sutton Coldfield, under Head Coach Ashley Cox, but she and her mother moved to Swansea when Simmonds was 11 to take advantage of the city's world-class swimming pool.[4] [5] Simmonds has three sisters and a brother.[6]
She studied Psychology at Loughborough University in England.[7] She is in a relationship with Matt Dean.[8]
At the age of 13, Simmonds was the youngest British athlete[9] at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, competing in the 50m, 100m and 400m freestyle, 50m butterfly, and 200m Individual Medley.[10] She won gold medals in the 100m and 400m freestyle events.[11] On 1 September 2012, 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.[12] Two days later, on the evening of 3 September, she took Gold in the 200m Individual Medley, breaking the World Record that she had set in the qualifying round that morning.[13]
On 12 September 2016, at the Rio Paralympics, Simmonds defended her gold medal for the 200m individual medley setting a new world record, the first below 3 minutes at 2:59.81[14] Simmonds also won a bronze medal in the 400m freestyle at the 2016 Summer Paralympics.[15]
In addition, Simmonds has won ten gold World Championship titles,[16] and swims in the S6 disability category.
On 2 September 2021, Simmonds announced her Paralympic retirement after missing out on a medal in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.[17]
After retiring from competitive swimming, Simmonds has gone on to present for BBC Sport, most recently for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.[18]
On 7 August 2022, it was announced that Simmonds would be participating in the twentieth series of the BBC One show Strictly Come Dancing with her professional dance partner being Nikita Kuzmin.[19] [20] She was eliminated in Week 7 after losing the dance off to Molly Rainford and Carlos Gu.[21]
Also, Simmonds competed on TV show The Great Celebrity Bake-Off (series 2, episode 2) and has appeared on a number of other television programmes including Saturday Night Takeaway, Ellie Simmonds: Swimming with Dolphins, Would I Lie to You? and The Crystal Maze.[22]
Documentaries include Finding My Secret Family[23] and A World without Dwarfism[24]
Simmonds' 2023 documentary Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family won best Single Documentary at the 2024 British Academy Television Awards.[25]
Simmonds won the 2008 BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year award.[26]
Simmonds was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours. At 14 years old, she became the youngest person ever to have received this honour.[27] She received the honour from Queen Elizabeth II on 18 February 2009.[28] In March 2012, in the 200 m individual medley, she became the first swimmer to break a world record at London's Aquatics Centre. Her victory in a time of 3:08.14 broke her own previous best time by over half a second.[29]
In 2011, Simmonds won the award for 'Best British Sporting Performance for an Athlete with Disability' at the Jaguar Academy of Sport Annual Awards.[30] At the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London Simmonds won four medals, two golds, a silver and a bronze. She 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. In celebration of her two gold medals, two Royal Mail postboxes were painted gold in her honour, one in Aldridge and one in Swansea.
Simmonds was elevated to Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to Paralympic sport.
Simmonds is a patron of the Dwarf Sports Association UK, along with swimmer Matthew Whorwood. Simmonds says of the charity, "It's a charity that supports people of short stature and helps them get into sport. One of the highlights of the year is the convention we have in the spring. There's everything from power lifting to athletics."[31]
In January 2019, Simmonds was appointed to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee board.[32]
Simmonds is an ambassador for The Scout Association.
She is also a Girlguiding leader in Manchester, where her pack name is Aqua Owl.[31]
Simmonds is an ambassador for The Prince’s Trust and worked closely on their Change A Girls life campaign.
Simmonds is a WaterAid ambassador.[31]