Rebecca Adlington Rebecca Adlington Rebecca Adlington, OBE (born 17 February 1989) is a British former competitive swimmer who specialized in freestyle events in international competition. She won two gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics in the 400-metre freestyle and 800-metre freestyle, breaking the 19-year-old world record of Janet Evans in the 800-metre final. Adlington was Britain's first Olympic swimming champion since 1988, and the first British swimmer to win two Olympic gold medals since 1908. She won bronze medals in both the women's 400-metre and 800-metre freestyle events in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. On 5 February 2013, Adlington retired
Anita Lonsbrough only two GB gold medallists that year, the other being Don Thompson in the 50 kilometre walk. She would also be the last British woman to win Olympic gold in swimming until Rebecca Adlington gained the gold in the 2008 Summer Olympics, 48 years later. At the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth she won three golds: 110 yards breaststroke; 220 yards breaststroke; and 440 yards individual medley. At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo she came seventh in the 400 m individual medley Lonsbrough was educated at St. Joseph's Catholic College, Bradford, a girls' direct grant grammar