At the swimming club where Ellie Simmonds spent her formative years, people remember that from an early age she always wanted to be in front.
A decade and a half later, the desire remains and has just driven her to win her fifth Paralympic gold medal at the age of just 21.
One of the faces of the London Games, her achievements in Rio, coupled with that familiar winning smile, have again marked her out as one of the stars of ParalympicsGB.
It is a far cry from when Simmonds began training at Boldmere swimming club in Sutton Coldfield, and yet her will to win was evident from an early age.
“I can just remember that she always looked to be at the front of the lane,” said Joey Stanger, who trained with Simmonds from about the age of six and is now a coach at the club himself. “She’s very determined, she wouldn’t let anyone put her down. As you can see from her races, she gives everything.”
Simmonds, who has achondroplasia, or dwarfism, started swimming aged five in the pool at the family home in Aldridge, West Midlands. She sensed it was good for her and “loved being able to move fast”.
At Boldmere, she and her older sister Katie, who has the same condition, trained with able-bodied swimmers, encouraged by their parents who did not make special allowances for them, and encouraged them to pursue their goals. “I’ve always been aware of being shorter, but I felt as if I could do anything,” Simmonds has said.
Ashley Cox, head coach at Boldmere, remembers: “She just loved swimming, the skill set and keeping up with her teammates. She had the disadvantage so worked hard to get to the same level. Certainly when she was younger, she was able to hold her own so we didn’t need to do anything massively different for her.”
Simmonds initially won races against able-bodied peers but switched to disability competitions when this was no longer possible.
At nine, watching the Athens Paralympics, she decided she wanted to emulate the swimmers she watched on television and, aged 10, she was entered on to the British swimming talent programme after being spotted in a disability event.
That meant leaving Boldmere and moving to Swansea with her mother while her father and siblings remained in the Midlands. It was a big sacrifice for the family to make, the separation lasting almost six years, but it paid off.
Simmonds was selected as the youngest member of a senior British swimming squad for the 2006 IPC World Championships at the age of 12 and was then the youngest British athlete at the 2008 Paralympics. Her two gold medals in Beijing propelled her into the public consciousness and she subsequently became the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year.
Those achievements earned Simmonds a prominent place on posters in the run-up to the London 2012 Games, at which she added two more golds to her collection.
Despite the magnitude of her success, which also includes 13 world titles, 10 European titles and various world records, Cox says: “It was always on the cards. She was really easy to coach, she’s got a good personality, always enjoying the swimming and never complaining. She always had good technique. I’m very proud of what she’s achieved and that I’ve been able to play a part in that.”
Like Simmonds, Cox says her parents deserve huge credit for the support they have provided throughout her career.
“I never saw her without a smile on her face, no matter how she feels,” says Stanger of the swimmer who still returns to Boldmere for swim sessions, when in the area, happy to share the pool with starstruck children and then pose for selfies and sign autographs afterwards. “When they see someone with all the medals, just to see someone like that at the pool, it’s really inspirational for them and for the coaches.”
Simmonds also often returns for club galas, presenting medals to those hoping to follow in her footsteps, and it is hoped she will be there for the next one, later this month, when she returns from Rio.
At Loughborough College, where Simmonds did an A-level in psychology while training at the university before moving to Manchester to begin preparations for Rio, the warmth for the former student is similar. “She was always smiling, always laughing, really popular,” said the head of sixth form, Chris Stainsby. “Like with her swimming, although she was enjoying herself, when it came down to doing a piece of course work or something she would push herself, she had that focus.”
• This article was amended on 14 September 2016. In an earlier version of the story we mistakenly called the head coach Ashley Cooper. It should have been Ashley Cox. This has been corrected.
