Jessica-Jane Applegate
Jessica-Jane Applegate MBE (born 22 August 1996[1]) is a retired British Paralympic swimmer. Applegate competed in the S14 classification for swimmers with intellectual disabilities, mainly freestyle and backstroke preferring shorter distances. She qualified for the 2012 Summer Paralympics and on 2 September, Applegate won the gold setting a Paralympic record in the S14 200m freestyle.
She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to swimming.[2][3]
In December 2025, a year after not being selected to be on Team GB for the Paralympic Games, Applegate announced her retirement from competitive swimming.[4]
Early life
[edit | edit source]Applegate was born in 1996 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. She was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and began swimming at a young age after her mother took her to Lowestoft and Oulton Broad Swimming Club.[5][6] Educated at Ormiston Venture Academy, by the age of 13 she was setting regional records and was selected for a UK sporting talent programme.[7]
Swimming career
[edit | edit source]Towards the end of 2011, Applegate was showing potential as an International competitive swimmer, setting the second-fastest world Paralympic time in the 50m and the third fastest in the 200m freestyle at the Wales Winter Open.[5] In 2012, she entered her first overseas tournament at the Berlin Open, taking two bronzes, in the 50m and 100m freestyle.[8] Applegate then followed her success in Berlin by taking the gold in the 200m freestyle at the 2012 British Swimming Championship in March. In taking the gold she not only finished four seconds inside the Great Britain Paralympic qualifying time but also set a new British record.[9]
Her last major meet before the Paralympics, the 2012 British International Disability Swimming Championships, saw Applegate win three medals. She took silver in the S14 50m and 100m freestyle races, and then on the last day of the tournament, in a very tight race against Ireland's Bethany Firth, she took gold with a time of 2:15.23.[8][10] Her results over the prior tournaments saw Applegate qualify for the 2012 Summer Paralympics in both the S14 200m freestyle and 100m backstroke.
In the Paralympics, Applegate's first event was the 100m backstroke on 31 August. She qualified in third place in the heats and then swam a personal best of 1:09.58 in the final to finish just outside the medals in fourth place.[11] In her favoured 200m freestyle, Applegate qualified for the final in first place with a time of 2:14.31. She then improved on this again in the final, coming from behind in the final length to win the gold medal and set a time of 2:12.63, a Paralympic record.[6]
In 2013 Applegate again represented Great Britain when she travelled to Montreal to compete in the IPC World Championships. There she won three medals including a gold in the 200m freestyle. She also took silver in the 200m medley and bronze in the 100m freestyle.[8]
Applegate represented Great Britain in the 2016 Paralympics in Rio where she won a silver in the women's 200m freestyle S14[12] and women's 200m individual medley SM14[13] and a bronze in the women's 100m backstroke S14.[14]
She was selected for her third Paralympics when she was selected for the postponed 2020 Tokyo Paralympics in July 2021.[15] In Tokyo, she won gold in the mixed 4 × 100 m freestyle relay S14[16] and bronze in the women's 200m freestyle S14[17] and 100m backstroke S14.[18]
See also
[edit | edit source]References
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- ^ Sport, Disability. "Rio Paralympics: Bethany Firth secures gold medal in world record time", BBC Sport. 9 September 2016. Retrieved on 10 August 2022.
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External links
[edit | edit source]- Jessica-Jane Applegate at British Swimming
- Jessica-Jane Applegate at ParalympicsGBLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Jessica-Jane Applegate at the International Paralympic Committee
- Jessica-Jane Applegate at IPC.InfostradaSports.com (archived)Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Jessica-Jane Applegate at Team England
- Jessica-Jane Applegate at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games
- 1996 births
- Living people
- English female medley swimmers
- British female freestyle swimmers
- British female medley swimmers
- S14-classified para swimmers
- Paralympic swimmers for Great Britain
- Paralympic gold medalists for Great Britain
- Paralympic silver medalists for Great Britain
- Paralympic bronze medalists for Great Britain
- Paralympic medalists in swimming
- Swimmers at the 2012 Summer Paralympics
- Swimmers at the 2016 Summer Paralympics
- Swimmers at the 2020 Summer Paralympics
- Medalists at the 2012 Summer Paralympics
- Medalists at the 2016 Summer Paralympics
- Medalists at the 2020 Summer Paralympics
- Medalists at the World Para Swimming Championships
- Medalists at the World Para Swimming European Championships
- Members of the Order of the British Empire
- Sportspeople from Great Yarmouth
- Competitors in the sport of athletics with intellectual disability
- Autistic sportspeople
- English autistic people
- Swimmers at the 2022 Commonwealth Games
- Commonwealth Games silver medallists for England
- Commonwealth Games silver medallists in swimming
- Medallists at the 2022 Commonwealth Games
- English female freestyle swimmers
- English female backstroke swimmers
- British female backstroke swimmers
- 21st-century English sportswomen