THE men and women whose sporting triumphs in Beijing took Team GB to fourth place in the Olympic medal table and second place in the Paralympics dominate this year’s New Year’s Honours list.
Cycling triple gold- medal winner Chris Hoy, who was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year earlier this month in Liverpool, receives a knighthood.
The 32-year-old, who was the first British athlete to clinch three gold medals at the same Olympic Games for 100 years, has a double reason to celebrate: his mother Carol, 61, also receives an MBE for service to healthcare.
Hoy’s fellow Team GB cyclists are also recognised for their dominance at the 2008 Olympics, where seven out of the 10 track events were won by British riders.
These include a CBE for Bradley Wiggins, 28, of Chorley, who took home two golds and an MBE for gold medal-winner Ed Clancy, 23, of Newton-le-Willows.
Other Olympians to receive honours include swimmer Rebecca Adlington, 19, from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, who won golds in both the 400m freestyle and 800m freestyle events – and gets an OBE.
Olympic 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu, 24, who came back from a year-long ban for missing drug tests to become the Olympic women’s 400m champion, gets the same honour.
Ben Ainslie, 31, who is Britain’s most successful Olympic sailor after winning a gold medal in each of the last three Games, gets a CBE.
Paralympian Eleanor Simmonds, 14, from Swansea, becomes the youngest person ever to be given an honour.
Simmonds, who was born with dwarfism, was just 13 when she won two golds for swimming in Beijing, and she gets an MBE.
Formula One champ Lewis Hamilton, 23, who won the Formula One world championship in November on the last corner of the last race of the season, also receives an MBE.
Reading Football Club chairman John Madejski – who has dated Cilla Black in recent years – receives a knighthood for his charity work.
Also knighted is comic fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett, 60, who has sold more than 55 million books worldwide.
He is best known for his Discworld series of comic fantasy novels, starting with 1983’s The Colour Of Magic.
CBEs go to Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant, 60, and award-winning jazz saxophonist Courtney Pine, 44.
An MBE is awarded to actor Liz Smith, 87, famous as Nana in sitcom The Royle Family, and an OBE goes to singer-songwriter John Martyn, 60, who has collaborated with Eric Clapton and Phil Collins.
MBEs go to child protection campaigner Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was murdered in 2000, and six heroes of the July 7 2005 terrorist attacks in London.
Mrs Payne, from Surrey, receives her honour for services to child protection for her attempts to ensure that other parents do not have to go through what she endured after her daughter’s murder eight years ago.
