A civic reception as held in Yarmouth for Paralympic Gold winner, Jessica Jane Applegate.

Paralympic gold medallist Jessica-Jane Applegate made an MBE in New Year Honours list

Saturday, December 29, 2012
9:58 AM

Paralympic swimmer Jessica-Jane Applegate has ended her golden year on a high.

For the Gorleston athlete - who stormed to gold in the 200m freestyle at the 2012 Games - has been made an MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours list.

Jessica-Jane - who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome - was honoured for her services to swimming, and her mum Dawn was delighted.

“To finish what has been an incredible year with royal recognition in the Queen’s honours list is just amazing and as a family we could not be prouder of Jess,” she said. “The City of Norwich Swimming Club is over the moon for her and would like to wish her all the very best.”

The 16-year-old was running a ‘Swim with Jess’ training camp held at the UEA sport park in Norwich when the announcement was made, inspiring the next generation take up sport.

She was not available to comment, but her mum said she was excited to be made an MBE.

Jessica-Jane, who was a pupil at Ormiston Venture Academy, was the first Brit to achieve Paralympic gold in the S14 category.

She overhauled a 0.83 sec deficit at the final split to go from third to first and set a Paralympic record and personal best of two minutes 12.63 seconds.