Eleanor May Simmonds (born 11 November 1994) is a British retired

Paralympian The Paralympic Games or Paralympics is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of disabilities. There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Kore ...

swimmer who competed in S6 events. She came to national attention when she competed in the

2008 Summer Paralympics The 2008 Summer Paralympic Games (), the 13th Summer Paralympic Games, took place in Beijing, China, from September 6 to 17, 2008. As with the 2008 Summer Olympics, equestrian events were held in Hong Kong and sailing events in Qingdao. It was ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, 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.

Early and personal life

Simmonds was born in Derbyshire, and is an adoptee. She grew up in

Aldridge Aldridge is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall in the West Midlands, England. It is historically, a village that was part of Staffordshire until 1974. The town is from Brownhills, from Walsall, from Sutton Coldfield and from ...

, a part of the Metropolitan Walsall Borough, and completed her primary education at Cooper and Jordan CofE Primary before attending Aldridge School and later Olchfa School in Swansea. Simmonds, who has

achondroplasia Achondroplasia is a genetic disorder with an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance whose primary feature is dwarfism. It is the most common cause of dwarfism and affects about 1 in 27,500 people. In those with the condition, the Rhizomeli ...

, became interested in swimming at the age of five. She swam for Boldmere Swimming Club in

Sutton Coldfield Sutton Coldfield or the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield ( ), is a town and civil parish in the city of Birmingham, West Midlands County, West Midlands, England. The town lies around 8 miles northeast of Birmingham city centre, 9 miles south of L ...

, under Head Coach Ashley Cox, but she and her mother moved to

Swansea Swansea ( ; ) is a coastal City status in the United Kingdom, city and the List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, second-largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of ...

when Simmonds was 11 to take advantage of the city's world-class swimming pool. Simmonds has three sisters and a brother. She studied

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

Loughborough University Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public university, public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university sinc ...

in England. She was in a relationship with Matt Dean until 2023.

Career

At the age of 13, Simmonds was the youngest British athlete at the

, competing in the 50m, 100m and 400m freestyle, 50m

butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

, and 200m

Individual Medley Medley swimming is a combination of four different swimming strokes ( freestyle (usually front crawl), backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly) into one race. This race is either swum by one swimmer as individual medley (IM) or by four swimmers as ...

. She won gold medals in the 100m and 400m freestyle events. On 1 September 2012, Simmonds repeated her gold performance to win the 400m freestyle at the

2012 Summer Paralympics The 2012 Summer Paralympics, branded as the London 2012 Paralympic Games, were an international Multi-sport event, multi-sport parasports event held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. They were the 14th Sum ...

in London, in which she took five seconds off the World Record time. 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. 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 Simmonds also won a bronze medal in the 400m freestyle at the

2016 Summer Paralympics The 2016 Summer Paralympics (), the 15th Summer Paralympic Games, were a major international multi-sport event for disabled sports, athletes with disabilities governed by the International Paralympic Committee, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, f ...

. In addition, Simmonds has won ten gold

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

titles, 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. After retiring from competitive swimming, Simmonds has gone on to present for BBC Sport, including for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2024 Paralympics. Since 2023, Simmonds has been one of several British Olympians and Paralympians to feature in adverts for

British Gas British Gas (trading as Scottish Gas in Scotland) is an energy and home services provider in the United Kingdom. It is the trading name of British Gas Services Limited and British Gas New Heating Limited, both subsidiaries of Centrica. Serving ...

. In August 2024, Simmonds was a guest on the ''How to Fail'' podcast, hosted by Elizabeth Day.

Television career

On 7 August 2022, it was announced that Simmonds would be participating in the twentieth series of the

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

show ''

Strictly Come Dancing ''Strictly Come Dancing'' (commonly referred to as ''Strictly'') is a British dance contest show in which celebrities partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly Ballroom dance, ballroom and Latin dance, Latin dance. Each couple is ...

'' with her professional dance partner being Nikita Kuzmin. She was eliminated in Week 7 after losing the dance off to

Molly Rainford Molly Anne Rainford (born 22 November 2000) is an English actress, singer and television presenter. She was a finalist on the Britain's Got Talent series 6, sixth series of ''Britain's Got Talent'' in 2012 and was one of the presenters on ''Fri ...

and Carlos Gu. 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 ''The Crystal Maze'' is a British game show devised by Jacques Antoine, based upon his format for the French game show '' Fort Boyard'', and produced for Channel 4. The programme focuses on teams of contestants, a mixed group of men and women, ...

''. Her documentaries include ''A World without Dwarfism'' (2022), ''Finding My Secret Family'' (2023), and ''Should I Have Children?'' (2025). Simmonds' 2023 documentary ''Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family'' won Best Single Documentary at the

2024 British Academy Television Awards The 2024 British Academy Television Awards ceremony was held on 12 May 2024 at the Royal Festival Hall in London, to recognise the excellence in British television of 2023. The ceremony was hosted by Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan for the se ...

. In August 2024, Simmonds won the fourth series of '' Cooking with the Stars''.

Honours and awards

Simmonds won the 2008

BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year The BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year award is presented at the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year award ceremony. It is awarded to the sportsperson aged 17 or under as of 1 January of that year, who has made the most outstanding co ...

award. Simmonds was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(MBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours. At 14 years old, she became the youngest person ever to have received this honour. She received the honour from

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

on 18 February 2009. 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. In 2011, Simmonds won the award for 'Best British Sporting Performance for an Athlete with Disability' at the Jaguar Academy of Sport Annual Awards. At the

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

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

and one in

. Simmonds was elevated to

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE) in the

2013 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2013 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrati ...

for services to Paralympic sport.

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." In January 2019, Simmonds was appointed to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee board.

Young people

Simmonds is an ambassador for

The Scout Association The Scout Association is the largest organisation in the Scout Movement in the Scouting in the United Kingdom, United Kingdom. Following the rapid development of the Scouting, Scout Movement from 1907, The Scout Association was formed in 1910 ...

. She is also a

Girlguiding Girlguiding is the operating name of The Guide Association in the United Kingdom, previously named The Girl Guides Association, which was formed in 1910. It is the original Girl Guides organisation in the world and, in 1928, became a founding m ...

leader in Manchester, where her pack name is Aqua Owl. Simmonds is an ambassador for The Prince’s Trust and worked closely on their Change A Girls life campaign.

Water

Simmonds is a

WaterAid WaterAid is an international non-governmental organization, focused on water, sanitation and hygiene. It was set up in 1981 as a response to the UN International Drinking Water decade (1981–1990). As of 2025, it was operating in 30 countries. ...

ambassador.

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Simmonds, Ellie Living people 1994 births Alumni of Loughborough University BAFTA winners (people) British female medley swimmers English female freestyle swimmers British female freestyle swimmers English adoptees English disabled sportspeople Medalists at the 2008 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 2016 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the World Para Swimming Championships Medalists at the World Para Swimming European Championships Officers of the Order of the British Empire Paralympic bronze medalists for Great Britain Paralympic gold medalists for Great Britain Paralympic medalists in swimming Paralympic silver medalists for Great Britain Paralympic swimmers for Great Britain People educated at Olchfa School People from Aldridge Sportspeople from the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall S6-classified para swimmers Swimmers at the 2008 Summer Paralympics Swimmers at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Swimmers at the 2016 Summer Paralympics Swimmers at the 2020 Summer Paralympics Swimmers with dwarfism Television presenters with disabilities World record holders in paralympic swimming Sportspeople from Glossop 21st-century English sportswomen English female medley swimmers English female butterfly swimmers British female butterfly swimmers English female breaststroke swimmers British female breaststroke swimmers