Rebecca Adlington (born 17 February 1989) is an English former competitive swimmer who raced in freestyle events. She won two gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics, in the 400 m and 800 m freestyle events, breaking the 19-year-old world record of Janet Evans in the latter. Adlington was Great Britain's first Olympic swimming champion since 1988, and the first British swimmer to win multiple Olympic gold medals at a single Games since 1908.
After winning her first World Championship gold over 800 m in 2011, along with silver in the 400 m freestyle at the same competition, she won bronze medals in both the 400 m and 800 m freestyle events at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Adlington has won gold medals at the Olympic Games, World Championships, European Championships and the Commonwealth Games. On 5 February 2013, she retired from competitive swimming at the age of 23, and in 2016, she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Since her retirement, Adlington has worked for the BBC as a pundit at the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games, as well as making various other media appearances.
Rebecca Adlington was born on 17 February 1989 in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, where she attended Broomhill School and then The Brunts School. The youngest of three sisters, she took up swimming aged four, and aged nine, began swimming competitively with Sherwood Colliery Swimming Club. Aged twelve, she became a member of Nova Centurion Swimming Club in Nottingham, where Bill Furniss began coaching her. He would continue coaching Adlington during her senior-level career. Adlington made her international debut at the 2003 European Youth Olympic Festival, where she finished with silver medals in both the 400 m and 800 m freestyle events.
In 2004, Adlington was unsuccessful in her attempts to qualify for that summer's Olympic Games in Athens, where she fell short in the 200 m, 400 m, and 800 m freestyle events at the Olympic trials. That same year, she won a gold medal in the 800 m freestyle at the 2004 European Junior Swimming Championships, but her 2005 season was disrupted after she contracted glandular fever. The illness, followed by post-viral fatigue, also caused her to miss the 2006 Commonwealth Games. At the 2006 European Aquatics Championships in Budapest, Adlington won silver in the 800 m freestyle. She finished the race more than eight seconds behind France's Laure Manaudou. At the British Championships that year, Adlington finished first in the 800 m freestyle, second in the 400 m freestyle, and third in the 200 m freesyle. In 2007, she set a personal best time in winning the 800 m freestyle at the ASA National Championships, but at the World Championships in Melbourne, she finished tenth in the 800 m freestyle, and failed to qualify for the final.
At the 2008 World Short Cross Championships, Adlington came within 0.25 seconds of breaking Kate Ziegler's world record on her way to victory in the 800 m freestyle. Her time of 8:08.25 was over seven seconds quicker than Joanne Jackson's national record, and exactly three seconds faster than the European record that had been held by Manaudou. She also won a silver medal in the 4 × 200 m relay; the British team finished 0.06 seconds behind the Dutch. Adlington broke her 400 m freestyle commonwealth record at the 2008 British Championships, securing victory with a time of 4:02.80. She also set a new national record time of 1:56.66 in the 200 m freestyle at the same meet.
Having successfully progressed through the British Olympic Trials, Adlington competed in the 400 m freestyle and 800 m freestyle events at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She was also scheduled to swim in the 4×200 m freestyle relay but was rested in the heat, and the team failed to qualify for the final. In the heats of the 400 m freestyle, Adlington broke the commonwealth record with a time of 4:02.24 as she qualified for the final second quickest. In the final, she won the gold medal with a time of 4:03.22. Adlington was fifth with 100 metres remaining, but a strong finish saw her overtake Katie Hoff of the United States in the final metres of the race. She was the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in swimming for Great Britain since Anita Lonsbrough in 1960.
Adlington set a new Olympic record time of 8:18.06 in the preliminary heats of the women's 800 m freestyle. She won the final in a world record time of 8:14.10, her second gold medal of the competition. She finished six seconds ahead of Italy's silver medallist Alessia Filippi, and 2.12 seconds quicker than the former world record which had been set by Janet Evans in the year that Adlington was born. At the time, this was swimming's longest standing world record. She matched athlete and double gold-medallist Kelly Holmes' achievement in 2004 as the best performance by a British woman at a single Olympic Games. She became the first British swimmer to win more than one gold medal at a single Olympic Games since Henry Taylor in 1908.
In 2009, Adlington said she had felt the extra pressure and expectation of being a double Olympic champion, and that it had been more difficult than she had anticipated. She also stated that media work had affected her swimming. She finished second behind Jackson in the 400 m freestyle at the 2009 British Championships; Jackson broke the world record, with Adlington's time being the second fastest ever recorded. At the 2009 World Aquatics Championships in Rome, she swam a personal best time of 4:00.79 to win bronze in the 400 m freestyle. Adlington chose to compete in the Speedo LZR swimsuit in which she had won her two Olympic gold medals. The seven other finalists all wore polyurethane costumes which the sports' governing body FINA banned in 2010. She added a second bronze in the 4×200 m freestyle. The quartet of Adlington, Jackson, Jazz Carlin and Caitlin McClatchey set a European record time of 7:45.51. She also finished fourth in the 800 m freestyle. At the end of 2009, Adlington was selected to represent the European E-Stars team at the Duel in the Pool, a contest against American swimmers held in Manchester. She achieved victory in the 800 m, but was second behind Allison Schmitt in the 400 m.
In 2010, Adlington won the 800 m freestyle at the Mare Nostrum in Barcelona. At the European Aquatics Championships in Budapest; she achieved victory in the 400 m, finishing 0.85 seconds clear of second-placed Danish swimmer Lotte Friis. She had earlier finished seventh in the 800 m freestyle. She also won bronze as part of the 4×200 m freestyle relay team with Carlin, Jackson and Hannah Miley.
Adlington qualified for her first Commonwealth Games after triumphing in the 200 m at the 2010 British Championships. At the Games in New Delhi, she won a bronze medal in the 200 m freestyle, the first time she had raced the distance in an international competition. She was also part of the 4×200 m freestyle relay team that won bronze. In the 800 m freestyle, Adlington led from the start to win her first Commonwealth Games gold medal. Her winning time was 0.05 seconds shy of the Commonwealth Games record, and she had suffered a stomach upset the night before. In the 400 m freestyle, Adlington won her second gold medal of the Games, and in doing so broke Sarah Hardcastle's Commonwealth Games record by two seconds which had been set in 1986.
Adlington finished first in the 400 m freestyle at the 2011 British Championships with a time of 4:02.84. She then edged out Carlin in the 200 m, before claiming victory in the 800 m freestyle, her third win in the competition. She was also victorious in the 800 m freestyle at the ASA National Championships where she won by a twenty-second margin. At the 2011 World Aquatics Championships in Shanghai, Adlington won the 800 m freestyle gold medal. With 100 metres of the race remaining, Adlington trailed Friis by 0.65 seconds, but she overtook the Dane to clinch victory by 0.69 seconds. Earlier in the competition, she claimed silver in the 400 m freestyle behind Italy's Federica Pellegrini.