麻豆约拍

She's got an OBE, five Paralympic gold medals, eight World Championship gold medals and 10 European Championship golds, but now Ellie Simmonds' sights are set on the Strictly Glitterball!

Swimming champ Ellie was born and raised in Aldridge, Walsall, and was a natural in the pool at and early age. By the time she was 11, she'd moved to Swansea for training with the GB squad, before going to her first Paralympic Games at the age of 13. Ellie was the youngest competitor at the 2008 games, taking home gold medals in the 100m freestyle and 400m freestyle events.

He success continued year after year, winning six golds at the IPC Swimming World Championships in 2009, five golds at the 2009 IPC Swimming European Championships, and a total of six golds at the same events in 2010 and 2011. Then the London 2012 Paralympics saw Ellie take home four gold medals at the age of 17 - an incredible achievement which she still counts as one of her career highlights.

Fast forward to the Rio 2016 Paralympics and Ellie reigned victorious again, bringing home another gold medal and setting the world record for the first ever person to swim a sub three minute time in her event. Having achieved all of her life dreams, Ellie stepped away from swimming for a while, before returning for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, but narrowly missed out on a place on the podium.

Throughout all of her success, Ellie has also released a series of children's books called Ellie's Magical Bakery, taken to the seas for fascinating 2016 documentary Ellie Simmonds: Swimming with Dolphins, and fronted her own 2022 documentary Ellie Simmonds: A World Without Dwarfism?, which saw her investigate a new medication designed to treat children with achondroplasia - the most common form of dwarfism.

With so many incredible acheivements under her belt, how will Strictly measure up? We've got a feeling Ellie's going to be fab-u-lous!