Ellie Simmonds

Eleanor Simmonds was born in Walsall and adopted as a baby. She has achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, and she started swimming at five because the water was somewhere her size did not matter. By eight she was competing, and by 11 her family had made a decision that shaped everything: she and her mother moved to Swansea so she could train with a top coach, while her father stayed behind in the Midlands for work.

She was picked for the Beijing Paralympics in 2008 at 13, the youngest member of the British team. She won the 100 metres and 400 metres freestyle in her S6 class, and cried on the podium in a way that made her instantly recognisable at home. The following year she became the youngest person to receive an MBE.

London 2012 brought pressure of a different kind. Her face was on posters across the city and she was expected to win. She did, taking gold in the 400 metres freestyle and 200 metres individual medley, both in world record times, plus a silver and a bronze. In Rio in 2016 she won the medley again, her fifth Paralympic gold.

Tokyo in 2021 was harder. She was disqualified in one final and finished without a medal, and she retired soon afterwards, saying she wanted to leave on her own terms. She has since danced on Strictly Come Dancing and made a documentary about tracing her birth mother.