SWIMMING SUPERSTAR Ellie Simmonds last night produced another golden Paralympic moment.
The 21-year-old became a legend of the sport by storming to victory in the women’s SM6 200m individual medley in Rio.
Simmonds retained her Paralympic title in a time of 2min 59.81sec at a raucous Olympic Aquatics Stadium.
This was Simmonds’ fifth gold medal spread over eight incredible years spent in the limelight of elite sport.
The Walsall-born competitor first came to nationwide prominence when, aged 13 years old, she won two titles at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics.
Four years later, the then teenager underlined her London 2012 poster-girl status by winning two further gold medals — and her smile and tears in home waters made her an even greater star.
Now, her Rio Games are properly up-and-running with this superb gold medal.
Simmonds, who has achondroplasia, has a rather busy programme out here in Brazil — so she had little time to party this success.
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Today she will be back in the pool as she prepares for her favourite event, the S6 400m freestyle.
Elsewhere, she is aiming to succeed in the S6 100m freestyle and SB6 100m breaststroke.
Simmonds won in a world record time of 2:59.81 — the only woman to dip under three minutes.
Yelyzaveta Mereshko of Ukraine was second in 3:02.38.
Simmonds had been fourth after the first 100m but, as expected, came back into the reckoning over the final two laps with a strong freestyle display.
She said: “I was so nervous leading into that race, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to be sick!’
“But I had a great warm-up and I’m really chuffed.
“It was a hard race, really tough. I’m really happy and it hasn’t sunk in. I’m going to enjoy the ceremony but I have another tough race coming up.”
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