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Rebecca Adlington's Biography

 
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Who is Rebecca Adlington?

Back in 2007, Rebecca Adlington was breaking through into the swimming top flight having been in 2006 as BBC Nottingham reported "a good club swimmer who was struggling with her health after contracting a very bad virus."

Coached by Bill Furniss, Rebecca Adlington continued to make great strides and in April 2008 she set a European record and took gold at the World Short Course Championships in Manchester.

Rebecca Adlington, or Becks as she is sometimes nicknamed, missed the world record by a just quarter of a second in the 800m freestyle.

In the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Rebecca Adlington won gold in both the 400m and 800m freestyle.

They were very different races. In the 400m freestyle Adlington just pipped Katie Hoff by seven 100ths of a second, whereas she easily won the 800m in a world record time.

In March 2009, Rebecca Adlington won the 800m freestyle title at the British Swimming Championships in a time of 8mins 18.86 secs, which was only 4.76 seconds outside her world record.

In July 2009, she came third behind Federica Pellegrini and Jo Jackson in the 400m freestyle at the World Championships.

In August 2010 Rebecca Adlington won gold in the 400m freestyle at the European Championships in Budapest. She had previously been disappointed by finishing seventh in the 800m.

In October 2010, Rebecca Adlington won gold in the 400m and 800m freestyle in the Commonwealth Games.

In the London Olympics 2012, Rebecca Adlington won bronze medals in the 400m freestyle and in the 800m freestyle.

In February 2013, it was revealed that Rebecca Adlington had retired from competitive swimming at the age of 23.

The following month, she revealed that she was getting engaged to swimmer Harry Needs. They had been dating since May 2011.

In 2013, she became one of the celebrities on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. She came 6th out of the 12 celebs in the jungle.

In January 2016, Channel 4 revealed that Rebecca Adlington would compete in the third series of The Jump.

Unfortunately, Rebecca Adlington suffered a shoulder injury whilst training for The Jump and had to retire from the show.

Rebecca Adlington and Harry Needs married in 2015 and had a baby daughter Summer, however shortly afterwards Rebecca and Harry broke up.

In 2017, she became one of the contestants on Celebrity Masterchef.

In October 2020, she told Fair Play: The Women in Sport Show about the online abuse she had received.

On 28 August 2021 she married Andy Parsons, the father of her son Albie.

In 2024, along with Mark Foster she provided analysis for the BBC on the Paris Olympics.



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